


Into Eden

by rosymamacita



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Bellarke, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Mail Order Brides, Marper - Freeform, Memori - Freeform, Science Fiction, cryo sleep, hint of bravenlarke, niytavia, space colonist au, space travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-20
Updated: 2018-02-26
Packaged: 2018-12-17 21:04:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 66,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11859633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosymamacita/pseuds/rosymamacita
Summary: Clarke Griffin needs to get OFF of Polis Station, and when she gets the opportunity to buy into a claim on Eden Colony, she takes it. The only problem is they only accept families and married couples as colonists, so to be accepted by the colonist's agreement, she has to buy a mail order husband. She's got the credits, so she does.She doesn't meet Bellamy Blake until five minutes before the space ship is set to take off, but as soon as she meets him, she realizes this is not at all going to be the business arrangement she expected it to be.





	1. Space Spouse

**Author's Note:**

> I have no explanation for this. I was writing a Clarke!art therapist modern AU when my brain demanded science fiction and when I saw a tumblr post asking someone to write a mail order bride fic where the bride was a man my brain said THIS IS HAPPENING.
> 
> So here it is. Clarke buys Bellamy as a mail order bride for a space colonists life. I don't know where it's going but it's going.
> 
> Yes, this is my second fake marriage fic in a row. I'm not even sorry.

“Dammit!” Clarke Griffin swore, not even under her breath, as she went through the final checklist for her flight. Everything was fine. All the gear and mods and tech she needed for her new life were stowed on board in freight. She’d bought the Eden claim from someone who had planned everything down to the last frozen livestock embryo, but then had gotten embroiled in a political scandal. Luckily for Clarke, her mother was a politician on Alpha Station, where they were from, and had known of the impending scandal, and how much Diana Sydney needed credits to buy her way out of trouble.

How convenient for Clarke, then, that she had the credits and needed to buy her way off of Polis Station, and out of a life that was imploding around her. She bought Diana Sydney’s whole claim at an exorbitant rate. Bought her supplies. And bought her ticket on this ship, all paid for by her father’s inheritance and following unlawful death suit. Clarke had been, for a little while there, one of the richest women Alpha Station or Polis Station had ever seen, but she spent it all on a new life. A life that was light years away from the mess here in Arkadia quadrant. 

Well. She wasn’t the richest woman anywhere anymore. She used the whole inheritance. A new life. She paid for new wardrobes fit for an agrarian planet. She greased the palms of every bureaucrat she crossed paths with, so that they wouldn’t look too closely into her story or report her papers in too timely a manner, and rush her through the system. She had complete clearance to get the hell off Polis station without incident, except for one thing.

No husband.

The ship was nearing final boarding. It was the finest ship in the galaxy, providing a direct flight, 40 years in cryo-stasis, and only two weeks on either end of real time flight. It would deliver her her right to her new life on Eden Colony, one of the only green and growing Earth-like planets open to new colonists… but ONLY if she were part of a family unit or mated pair, ready to breed. That was the point of a colony, after all. Populating the galaxy. Building a human home world. 

After buying her claim and her flight, she’d used the last of her credits to pay for an appropriate spouse— someone also looking to start over on the new colony but without the credits or connections to get there. She’d picked the first likely available candidate she’d found. It was a man, Bellamy Blake, by chance, so no frozen sperm needed, for simplicity’s sake. All genetic codes up to snuff. His and hers. Good looking. Prime breeding material. He’d already been approved by the Eden Colony, so she didn’t even have to rush that paperwork through. He was strong, had great psych and IQ scores. He even had an education. It wasn’t her business what had made him give up his stable life on Ark Station to go into the great beyond, but he’d signed up for the black market mail order spouse program. She’d paid for him and his ticket and his new life. They’d been married in absentia. But he wasn’t here.

This was it. This was done. Bellamy Blake had better show up. Anxiety bubbled in her stomach. If he didn’t show and stole all her credits she’d be screwed, leaving her without a husband to get her into Eden, without an inheritance, and stuck on this damn station with all the politics and backstabbing AND an ex girlfriend who blamed her for some very important political losses that she was NOT to blame for, no matter what her advisors told her. 

Lexa knew how to hold a grudge and as the commander of Polis Station she had the power to get Eden Colony to revoke her colonist license for faking a spouse as long as she was on her station. Lexa would know she wasn’t a part of a mated couple because before two weeks ago, THEY had been part of a mated couple. Clarke needed to be on this ship and off this station before Lexa found out she was escaping. She’d had enough of people screwing her over. She needed out of this quadrant. She was done with all of them. Once on Eden Colony, none of them would have any power over her and she could breathe. Master of her own fate.

Clarke paced the passenger’s lounge. The count down to final boarding was dinging over the door. 

She was grabbed firmly around the waist and spun around. “I told you I’d be here, baby,” a deep voice said, then she was pulled into a firm chest and kissed soundly. She gasped and he used the excuse to slip her his tongue. Bellamy Blake. Her husband.

She bit him.

He pulled away laughing, one hand to his mouth, probably still feeling her teeth. Clarke hit him on that firm chest. Strong. Yes he was strong all right. Good breeding. 

“You’re late,” she scolded. 

He looked at her with laughing eyes. He was much handsomer than the pictures showed. She knew he wasn’t that tall, but he gave the impression of size. His dark hair was longer than in the files, and curled over his forehead carelessly. His lips, now quirked into a smirk, were full and shapely and his bone structure was sharp enough to cut glass. Her husband was beautiful. She was a little bit stunned. She had not expected this. 

“Sorry Clarke,” he said, and she caught the way he swallowed her name, awkward. The first time he said it aloud, probably. He looked at her, taking her in. She wondered how well she compared to the pictures of her he’d seen. 

Clarke cleared her throat and nodded at his duffel on his shoulder. “Is that all you’re bringing, Bellamy?” The name rolled on her tongue and she decided she liked the way it sounded, now that she’d met the man attached to it. Her husband.

He cocked his head, smirk still in place. “You’ve got everything taken care of, right?”

That had been the deal. He would be her husband, would travel with her and help her build her stake, and they’d have the requisite three children, eventually, for the colony requirements, and she would pay his way and provide him with all he needed. She refused to be ashamed of needing to buy a husband. She needed off the station and needed to take advantage of the open colony while it was still open. What good were all those credits her dad left her if she couldn’t use them to have a better life than the one available among all the politics and infighting of this damn quadrant. “Of course I’ve taken care of everything. Don’t I always?”

“I guess you do, Clarke.” The name sounded better in his mouth now. Like he was getting used to it. The final boarding timer chimed. “This us?” he asked.

She nodded. “We’d better get on board.”

He nodded and they walked, side by side to the gate. She was struck with the knowledge that she was walking with the man who would be her partner for at least the next five to ten years or so, and she had no idea who he was. “I wasn’t sure if you’d make it,” she said to him. “You really kept me guessing.”

He let out a half laugh. “I’ll tell you about it when we get to our cabin.” He glanced at her. There was a bit of a question in his look. As if he wasn’t sure they’d have a cabin, or share it, or be able to talk in private. But they did and they would. She made sure of that with her credits. She was sparing no expense. She nodded. 

He let out a breath. “Well,” he said. “If there’s one thing I can promise you from now on, my dear wife, it’s that I’ll be sure to keep you on your toes.”

Clarke startled and looked over at him. A spike of nerves going through her. What could he mean? This was a business arrangement, no matter that they were legally spouses. A committed one, but business all the same. They never even had to have sex to reproduce. She was a doctor and was fully capable of supervising her own medical impregnation, if it came to that. Her physical attraction to her husband actually had no effect on the business deal.

But they were at the ticket gate, and she got busy turning over her papers. He handed his id over too, and they had to stand there while the agent ran their papers for authenticity. She tensed, worried, at the last minute, that their marriage license would be called into question. It was real and official, except for the date, two years before they signed the papers. She’d paid for the falsification so that they could pass the marriage longevity clause in the colony agreement. 

The agent stared at the screen so long, pressing his buttons. Clarke’s anxiety rose. It could be anything. The marriage license could have been found out. Lexa could have caught her and put a hold on her travel papers. Once she got off the station, Lexa would have no jurisdiction, but they weren’t off station yet. Or it could just be regular bureaucracy that delayed their papers until the ship’s boarding had passed and they missed their flight.

Bellamy’s heavy hand landed on the back of her neck and squeezed gently. He rubbed at her tight muscles. “Relax, Clarke,” he murmured, and his deep voice vibrated along her frayed nerves. It was soothing. “It’ll be okay.” She looked up at him and his eyes were warm and brown. His eyes. 

She’d been meaning to argue with him that he didn’t know if it would be okay, but his eyes made her feel, suddenly lighter. And she actually believed that it WOULD be okay. 

“Welcome aboard, Mr and Mrs Griffin-Blake,” the agent said. 

Clarke startled and turned back to him. She had been staring at her husband. Hearing the agent call them that had her staring at him, too. She blinked, frozen. Bellamy Blake… Bellamy Griffin-Blake, her husband, reached out and took her papers and his back from the agent. 

“You ready for Eden, baby?” he said, a grin in his words and in his eyes, but not on his lips. This one. He had her puzzled. 

“Sure, honey,” she snapped, waspishly. Pissed off was better than whatever strange emotions she had no name for going through her head… body… heart. 

The grin slipped onto his lips. He took her hand and tucked it into the crook of his arm, and they walked down the gangplank onto the ship that would take them to their new life, as husband and wife, on a whole new planet.

She suddenly realized that what she had signed up for was a lot more real than what she had thought it would be.


	2. Actually Some Sort of Princess

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bellamy was a mail-order bride. It was ridiculous and desperate. But he had no reason to stay on his dirt colony and this would get him to Eden.
> 
> Now he was married to this golden princess, Clarke Griffin. And she was so rich it made his head spin. He wanted to take advantage of it all. This money that was now technically his, of a sort, because it never had been fair the way the rich always got everything and people like him got nothing. So he could right? It would be fair. 
> 
> But Clarke seemed sort of desperate herself. Clarke seemed sort of sad. Dammit if she weren't all sorts of earnest and honest and he kind of liked her.

“A state room,” Bellamy said. He stood in the middle of the spacious cabin on their luxury space liner, and spun slowly in a circle. There was a tiny chandelier like he’d seen in the history vids, fabric curtains on the portholes which actually looked out into space. They had a room where they could watch the stars. Actually watch the stars. Through an actual plas glass window. What kind of… a window. In a private room. And then to top it off, it was decorated with some sort of planet side pretension. With actual shimmery cloth curtains. And wood trim.

He dropped his duffel and went up to the window. There were the stars all right. To be honest, he was not impressed. He touched the trim and knocked on it. “That’s wood.” He looked back at Clarke Griffin.

Clarke Griffin-Blake. His WIFE. 

She looked over. “Wow,” she said. 

“Wood. Like from a tree. Inside of a space ship.” Nobody could afford to decorate their ships with wood unless they were ridiculously wealthy and had credits to burn.

She nodded like she had no idea what he was getting at. 

He chuckled and looked back at the room. His stateroom for his trip to Eden colony where he would start his new life with his new wife, who’d ordered him from the black-market. He knew she must have had money to be able to afford all this, or connections or something, but he was not expecting this level of luxury. “You’re actually some sort of princess, aren’t you?”

She looked at him shocked, hurt almost, and for a minute, he felt bad. 

“Lucky me. Marrying into royalty.” Marrying into. Being bought and paid for. Same difference, right?

She raised her chin slightly. 

She really was privileged. He knew he should have expected it. “It must be nice to just, you know, throw some money around make things happen and get to enjoy a life like this.” He smirked at her as she glared, knowing even while he was doing it that he was provoking her and not really knowing why. Just that she was so pretty and golden and rich and he was leaving his dingy life behind and he felt totally out of his element. “So I guess, what I mean to say is thanks for the life of luxury, princess.” He flopped down on the couch with the brocade embroidery. Shit this place was high class. And put his boots up on the cushion because he was an ass. 

She kicked his duffel, which he’d dropped in the middle of the room. “Stow that. We have to strap in for take off.”

He laughed. “What on a luxury liner like this? I thought that was just for the common folk. We’re royalty, aren’t we?”

“No.” Her voice was hard and flat. He’d pushed too far. He was an ass. “Stow it. Your cubby should be….” She walked over to the wall and pressed something. A door opened. “No, that’s my wardrobe. So yours is,” she stepped over. “Here.”

The door opened and inside it was full. He got up and looked inside. “This is a whole… how many clothes do I need? I’ve never owned this much clothing in my life.”

“This is just for the trip. We have to act the part of, well, wealthy colonists.”

“It’s an act, huh? I think it’s your real life.”

“No. It’s not. This is all there is. Don’t get used to it. I spent my whole fortune for this trip. To outfit the both of us. And to buy this claim off of someone who couldn’t use it. There’s nothing left.” 

He blinked at her. “You spent all your credits on this. Why would you do that? And used the last of it for this fancy stateroom?”

She shook her head. “No. I used the last of it for you. For our marriage. So I could get accepted in the colony charter. The stateroom was part of what Diana Sydney sold me. I just had to change the boarding location and pay for your trip to Polis Station, and of course all the gear a man needed for the colony. So I spent the last of my inheritance on you.”

“Me?”

She nodded.

“I used your measurements from the agency—“

“Space Spouse Store,” he interrupted. His sister, Octavia, and he used to make fun of those desperate enough to sell themselves to the colonists for a better life. And now Octavia was gone and here he was one of the loser space spouses, married to the gorgeous, rich princess. He deserved the mockery.

“The marriage contractors,” she corrected, “to buy a wardrobe that would fit you. So unless you gained or lost weight, or lied, since filling those forms out, it should be all good. All this stuff here is to play your role for the ship events, the dinners, the meet and greets, the official survival workshops, with the other colonists. 

“Survival workshops?”

“We’re all used to living on space stations and developed colonies. Eden’s a wilderness.”

“Maybe you all are used to living in luxury. I know what it’s like to work every day. I’ll do fine.”

She pressed her lips together. “Still. You need to pay attention. This is no joke.”

“Yeah, I got that, princess. Don’t worry. I’ll do what I need to.”

“I’m still a little nervous that we’ll be found out as a fake. We have to get our story down. How we met, what our tastes are.”

“Yeah, I knew the game when I signed up. I’ll play along.”

“Okay good. We’re not on Eden colony yet. They could send us back and keep all our gear. When we get to Eden colony, we’ll go straight out to our claim. Once on Eden soil, that’s it. We’re colonists. They can’t send us back. I got you a wardrobe for colony life, too. It’s in freight. They’ll deliver it along with our building mods and mechs and everything we’ll need.”

He ran his hand along the clothes that someone, what did they call them on a ship like this? A steward? had hung in this closet. “You got everything figured out.”

“Well, most of it was already planned by the person whose claim I bought. The rest? Why not spend my inheritance on giving us the best shot at a new life? My dad died for this. Maybe if he hadn’t died I wouldn’t have needed to leave the quadrant.” She looked away from him. 

He wanted to call her a poor little rich girl, but she looked legitimately sad. He was taking it out on her because he was nervous and he knew it. He didn’t even know this woman, and he didn’t think she’d ever headed out to colonize a new planet, either. He wasn’t THAT much of an ass. He could feel empathy for the girl. 

He chose this. It had felt like his last choice, but he definitely chose it. He could have stayed working in the factory on his dirt colony when his sister got married and ran off, but he didn’t want to. There was nothing for him there. Here at least he had an opportunity. He looked at Clarke and a seed of hope settled in his gut.

A siren broke into the peace and beauty of the stateroom. “All passengers, please proceed to flight seats.”

Bellamy felt his heart racing. This was it. No turning back now. As if he could have turned back before. He’d made his choice when he accepted Clarke Griffin’s proposal. And since meeting her, it might have felt more real, but it was still his choice. 

He stowed his duffle and locked the door. Clarke gestured him over to the flight seats, which were cleverly disguised in the living area of the stateroom to look like entertainment loungers. As soon as they sat down, in fact, the vid screen went off and began playing soothing music and images of pastoral scenes. Their soon to be home, he assumed. Eden. 

The nerves in his gut turned into anticipation. He looked over at Clarke as she fastened her harness. He really hadn’t been expecting her to be this pretty. In her pictures, she’d been very professional and buttoned up, clearly good looking, but this girl, frazzled and flushed with nerves, she was something different. And he was startled by his urge to ease her anxiety.

He clicked his harness in and a soothing green light went on over their stateroom door. They were all go for take off. 

“Boy it’s lucky they got my shuttle fixed when they did, or I would have missed the whole flight.” 

The look she shot him was nowhere near the response he’d expected from his half joke. 

“That’s why you were so late? They were getting ready to close the doors on us.”

“Us?”

“Us. They weren’t letting me on without the family in the contract. Me and my husband. Both or neither.”

The engines in the luxury liner started humming. He could feel it through his bones. He’d barely had enough time to adjust to actually being on this ship before it was taking off. This was all happening so fast. He was leaving his old life on a dirt colony, the grind of working for the factories with no way to have a better life, not unless he got off. His sister had got off. And now he was following her. To freedom. The vid played images of a sweeping landscape with pink clouds and towering mountains. The vegetation a strange bluish green. 

Almost freedom. He was still married to this woman. He slanted his eyes to look at her. A beautiful woman, to be sure. She dug her fingers into the arm of the seat, her eyes locked onto the vidscreen. She didn’t look particularly eager to get to Eden Colony. She looked like she was nervous, anxious. Like she wanted to be away. A thought occurred to him.

“If I had missed the flight, they wouldn’t have let you on either.”

She shook her head tightly. 

“You would have been left on Polis Station.”

“Yes.”

“And they would have kept your claim and your supplies.”

“Yes.”

“But you spent your whole fortune on this claim and this trip and… me.”

She nodded slowly, still looking at the vid of Eden Colony. “I did.”

“I almost didn’t make it. Clarke. You almost lost everything.”

“But you did make it.”

“What were you going to do if I didn’t show up? If I’d been a scammer. Or my shuttle had just broken down like it almost did?”

She shrugged and the looked at him finally. Her blue eyes were open and vulnerable. She started to speak and then swallowed. “I guess we’re married, and you’ve got to play the game, so you should know. My ex girlfriend is the commander of Polis Station. It ended badly. She blamed me for some things that happened in her career. Her advisors informed my employers. My job ended badly. I was being evicted from my apartments so you could say that ended badly, too.” She laughed bitterly. He could see the sadness settled into her skin and he wished he could reach across and take her hand, just for human comfort, but she was too far away. She shrugged. “If you hadn’t shown up, I was going to call my mom on Alpha Station and let her bring me home like she’d been begging to do for the last two years.”

Bellamy blinked. Alpha Station. “Griffin.” He said. “As in Abby Griffin, the chancellor of Alpha Station.” She blinked back. “And Jake Griffin, the galactic engineer who was assassinated by Abby Griffin’s political rivals for exposing the plot to conceal a new power source that would enable interstellar travel at a price regular humans could afford. That Griffin.”

She didn’t nod. She just looked at him. 

“Holy shit. My wife really is a princess.”

She pointed at the vid screen. “I won’t be a princess there. I’ll just be another colonist, getting away from my old life, trying to make a planet habitable to the human diaspora.”

He tried to turn and face her but the harness held him down. “But because of your father, regular people might actually be able to live on Eden, not just the rich people who get everything and always have. Holy shit. I’m the rich people now?”

“No. We’re not rich. It’s all gone. And money doesn’t mean anything on Eden Colony, anyway. It’s a barter economy.”

He wasn’t sure if she believed that or if she was naive. If she was a Griffin from Alpha Station, then she had to understand politics and economic and how the powerful got everything and the poor got nothing. And she had to understand that a government who confiscated the freight of colonists who didn’t pass the charter agreement was not exactly a colony that didn’t care about money. And he might have brought that up to her, but the engines roared to life and and the ship began moving and Polis Station, shrunk away. He could see it through the porthole, the ugly little station, it’s long, awkward shape looking almost like a tower from an ancient fairy tale, a flame burning away on the pinnacle, really just a signal beacon, beeping out, over and over again.

When the luxury liner was far enough from Polis Station and the nearby inhabited colonies and stations, it picked up speed, the g-forces pressing them into the harness of their flight seats. By the time they reached their cruising speed and the announcement came that they were free to walk about the ship again, Bellamy had too many questions to ask his wife, and he didn’t know where to start.


	3. It Was Fake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This mail order bride thing was an uneasy partnership. Keeping it just business should have made it easier. But Bellamy still thought she was a princess and he was somehow lower than her. A slave even. And everything was complicated by the fact that Clarke was very attracted to him. He was her husband. But he wasn't. 
> 
> Maybe they could find some sort of balance where everyone got what they needed.

Fake. It was fake.

Clarke was worried that after only two weeks pretending to be a long term mated pair with her husband, whom she’d just met, JUST MET, she was having a hard time remembering that she wasn’t planning any happily ever after with him. She was having a hard time remembering that it wasn’t REAL.

It was horrible. It was unexpected. It was against her will. It was STUPID.

She kept trying to tell herself that. She kept reminding herself that it had only been a few weeks since she was with Lexa. Although when she thought about it, the tail end of her year long relationship with Lexa had not been all that loving, or happy, or connected. Lexa had never understood her grief over her father’s death and had wanted her to just get past it. Their relationship had started out passionate, needy even, but just gotten more political and resentful as time went on. Lexa didn’t like the time that Clarke’s career as a medical researcher took and thought she should quit. She called her naive when she disagreed. And when she’d said they should get married, she hadn’t even asked. She just declared it. 

She liked that Clarke was the daughter of Chancellor Griffin from Alpha Station, with whom she she very much wanted to be allied. It would be advantageous for everyone. But Clarke disliked all the station politics and jockeying for power and alliance, always had. And she hated it more after her father was killed two years ago, for doing what was right, not what was political. It all made her wonder if Lexa ever really loved her at all, or if she’d just wanted her for her political power. 

Clarke wasn’t even sure she believed in love anymore, that’s why this business arrangement had seemed so much better. No politics. No love. Just a marriage for convenience sake. 

She tried to tell herself that at least they were honest and they had both agreed and they both knew that it was in name only. They were… business partners. 

And, as he kept reminding her, she was the one in charge, so it wasn’t really a business PARTNERSHIP so much as she was the boss, and he was, kind of, her employee.

“You might call me a slave,” he said. She’d gaped at him. It was after a formal dinner and he threw off his tuxedo jacket in anger. He hadn’t liked sitting in that room of dignitaries and wealthy, smug colonists, pretending to be one of them, letting her hang onto his elbow and look up at him adoringly. Fake adoration. It wasn’t hard to stare at his beauty, but she was under no illusions. It was not love. 

“You’re not a slave. We’re married. It’s a partnership.” No matter his beauty. And that wouldn’t influence her at all. 

“You bought me. I’m a slave.” He glared at her darkly and damned if that didn’t make him more attractive. It was simply outrageous.

She wanted to yell at him, but he just kept stripping. First the tie that he’d been complaining about, then the shirt with all its complicated buttons. He was down to bare chest and starting on his pants when she turned around and hid her face in her own wardrobe. “We agreed to this. You agreed to this. We both wanted to get to Eden Colony,” she said, and her voice wasn’t strangled with lust or emotion or whatever. It was frustration. With him! Not her feelings. “We’re both getting something out of it. You get the free trip. I get to bypass the stupid rules.”

“Yeah, but you don’t get to bypass them, do you. We still have to be married.”

“In name only.”

“We still have to live together.”

“I’ve got the plans for our homestead. It’s required we share a dwelling, but I’m constructing a dwelling with two separate apartments. We’ll be more like neighbors, once we get out to the claim. And the nearest town is an hour away so there’s no one to call us on our separate living arrangements. We’ll be fine.”

“You have the resources to build a house with an extra apartment, all so that you don’t have to live with me?”

She didn’t know why the question made her heart skip. She pushed it aside. “I spent ALL my money, Bellamy. I was going to get what we needed. And I never intended to treat you like a slave, even before I met you. This is a mutually beneficial partnership. We’re sharing all the resources. We’ll be pulling our own weight on Eden colony. Together. Not me with all the money and you doing the labor. This is not me owning you. Please. You will own me as much as I own you. And we still have to have children. Together.”

He went silent then. The silence went on so long that she took her nightgown out of the wardrobe and clutched at it like it would protect her, like it would slow her rapidly beating heart, and turned slowly to look at him. All he wore was plain black briefs, ones she had actually bought for him. But she wouldn’t let herself look. “Not that—I mean— I’m a medical professional. We have a fully functional scientific module. The intention is for us to use it to raise livestock from our bank of frozen embryos, but I will also be able to fertilize my eggs with your— I mean— we have options is all I’m saying.”

He just looked at her. “We haven’t talked about this.”

“We’ve only known each other two weeks. It’s kind of personal.”

“It’s personal to both of us. This is about— us.”

“We— we have options, Bellamy.” She looked at him with as blank a face as she could manage. It seemed to be effective. He nodded, business like.

“I never asked. I assumed that, because you paid for a man to be your husband that you were attracted to men. I shouldn’t have assumed. Perhaps you just wanted a male for the farm. Or as a father. Not as a mate. Not in that way.”

She swallowed and did not look down at his bare chest and tight abs. But she couldn’t help but see anyway. “No.” She said shortly. “I am attracted to men and women both, no preference. Thanks for checking. I’m sorry I didn’t say. But like you said, we haven’t talked about this, and our sexual preferences and plans for impregnation weren’t exactly going to be part of the polite dinner conversation with the other wealthy colonists. We had more important stories to straighten out.”

He laughed and then moved to his wardrobe where he pulled out the cotton pajamas she’d bought for him. She liked them. They looked soft. He looked relaxed in them. He put them on and she could breathe deeply again, although her eyes kept returning to the suggestion of muscles underneath the shirt. It was good he had muscles. Good for breeding. Good for working their claim. He’d been a good choice for a husband, even if she’d picked him by chance. The marriage brokers she’d chosen had done their job well. She was sure they’d be able to work things out and it would stop being so awkward. Someday. 

“So I assume you will be… carrying our child? Yourself? Or do they do human surrogates the way they do the livestock surrogates?”

Clarke choked on air. He smirked and clapped her on the back. “Sorry. Was that topic too sudden? I thought we were talking about it. Sexual preferences, I am also bisexual by the way, with a strong preference for women. And plans for impregnation. Were we not talking about it?”

She cleared her throat and shook her head. “No, I just— I hadn’t thought about carrying a child. I hadn’t thought of it. I mean, I knew I would have to have children, that it was the charter, but— the idea…” she looked up at him wide eyed, as if he could help her. How could he? The very thought. She pressed her nightgown into her stomach, imagining. 

“I’m sorry,” he said. His eyebrows were drawn together in concern. “I was teasing you. A little. I shouldn’t have. We don’t have to talk about it. We’re not there yet.”

She gaped at him. How was he so sensitive? This man, who she’d learned had been nothing but a worker, then a guard, then a janitor in a factory on a dirt colony, a dome that manufactured synthetics. Nothing all that special. Just one colony in a hundred. He had calluses on his hands and he’d raised his sister after his mother died. Just a hard working man. They had nothing in common and they had to make up the story that they’d bonded over the net, on a webring about ancient earth mythology, strangely , an interest that they both shared in real life. He liked mythology. And human history. Inside his factory station skin, he was a man with a mind. And she was getting to like him more every day. She wasn’t ready to talk about having his baby yet. But it wasn’t going to get any easier if she waited. 

“No. We should talk about it. It’s going to happen, one way or another. This is our last night cruising before they put us into cryo sleep for the the jump to hyper flight. I just hadn’t thought about how soon it would have to happen. I mean. If we’re going to free you from your contract as soon as possible, that means I should attempt impregnation was soon as we reach our claim. That’s, not counting the time we’ll be in cryo sleep,” she paused and realized the time frame. Her breath left her forcefully. “Two weeks from now.” She laughed and it sounded kind of panicked even to her own ears. “I should start adjusting to the concept. I can’t believe I didn’t think of that. I meant to be so prepared.”

“Woah, Clarke,” Bellamy said, putting his big hands on her shoulders and holding her down. She was glad for it. She felt like she might fly off into space. “Slow down. We don’t have to move so fast. There’s no time constraint for pregnancy and children in the charter agreement, is there?”

“No.” She shook her head and laughed a little and this time her laughter was tinged with tears. “Of course not. We could take as long as we wanted. If we reach the end of my fertility, they would have us requisition a surrogate, like you said. But that only is necessary in medical cases. I should be fertile through my forties. We have twenty years.”

“Then why are you saying it has to happen now. Can’t we get used to our claim? Get used to each other?”

She blinked up at him and the tears that threatened had the audacity to fall. She ducked her head, but he saw. “You’re not a slave Bellamy. I don’t want to keep you longer than you need. You’re free, okay? The definitions for marriage in the charter are very broad. Okay? You can live your life however…” she paused thinking about the tall and beautiful dark haired colonist that had been eyeing him at the dinner even though he’d been holding her hand. She’d seen him looking back at the woman. Clarke thought she was beautiful too but she hadn’t been looking at Clarke like she wanted to eat her up. “You can live your life however you want, okay, Bellamy? I’m not going to hold you to any antiquated notions of marriage. I’m the one who has to monitor my fertility and the genetic background of our offspring. I’m the one that can get pregnant. You can do what you want, just be careful.”

“Hold up. Are you telling me I can sleep around?”

She shrugged.

“But you have to be faithful to me? Even though we’re not a real couple?”

“Just in relationships where I might become pregnant. They don’t just want men and women on Eden, they want prime genetic material, and that’s us. That’s how we got accepted. They liked my money and connections, but you? You’re perfect. They want your genes populating Eden. You could probably even get some other women pregnant and they wouldn’t mind, as long as the child was registered and its background confirmed to guard against future inbreeding. It’s a worry on a colony with a small population and not much migration.”

He raised his hands. “No Clarke. No. I’m not doing this.”

“What? Uhm. You signed a contract. You have to. If we don’t have children they’ll take our claim and we will have to hire on to someone else’s or find a way back. Because we’ll have no credits left.”

He snorted. “No. That’s not what I meant. I signed a contract. That means we’re married. I don’t cheat. Okay? Maybe it wasn’t a love match, but to me, this marriage is real.”

“But the charter definition of marriage is broad—“

“Clarke. I don’t cheat. I’m not going to sleep around. And, for god sake. I’m not looking to get out of our marriage as soon as possible. If I’m building a stake with you, I’m building a stake. We’re doing this together. We’re partners. And there’s no way I would even think of leaving my children. We don’t have to rush to have children so I can be free. Please. So stop that.”

“I thought you said you were a slave?”

“I was pissed off. I got accosted in the corridor by some woman who seemed to think that because we came from different classes I must be a space spouse—“

Clarke gasped. “She knew?”

“Oh don’t worry. I sold my love for you. She now thinks our forbidden love is why we were so desperate to get away from your family’s connections.”

“Oh. That’s good. Alpha Station is full of incredible snobs. Why didn’t we think of that?”

“I did. I told Echo. We’ll have to use that story from now on. Especially since mail order brides have a reputation in the wealthy colonies of being, well, whores.”

Clarke felt her mouth fall open.

“Mmhm. Yeah. Apparently, it’s a rather common occurrence on colonies for space spouses to be thrown over when the colonists find a better candidate. I’m surprised your research didn’t look into the black market economies on the colonies. Even on Eden. There’s a thriving community of comfort women and men and Echo thought she’d get her bid on me in early.” 

She stared at him and felt her anger rise. She clenched her hands and imagined the tall woman’s throat in her fingers. “I’m going to kill her.”

Bellamy laughed. “What?”

“I’m going to kill her,” she said, her voice lower. “How dare she treat you like that. I won’t stand for it. And you thinking you have take it? No. I’m going to kill her.” She began stalking towards the door. 

He grabbed her arm and spun her around. She was standing very near him. “Woah. Calm down. It’s nothing new. This is the way the privileged treat us lowborns. We’re there to be used, as workers, as guinea pigs, for service, in one way or another. At least with you around, I’ve got some defenses and I don’t have to, I don’t know, fight my way out of it and get arrested or on the wrong side of the power structure, like what happened to me back on my factory colony.”

“That happened to you there, too?”

He shrugged like it was no big deal. “I might have said yes. I’ve done so before. But I never liked Shumway. I didn’t trust him. Why do you think I went from being a guard to being a janitor? I was on track to become an officer, even run for office some day. Factory is a democracy, not a hereditary monarchy like Alpha.”

“Alpha isn’t a hereditary monarchy, we have a council.”

“Who all come from the hereditary ruling class. And Polis? They only elect commanders from within a privileged gene pool. It’s a little more complex than just family lines, because they require a certain genetic marker, so one person who has it might be eligible to rule, but not their full blood sibling, or either parent, since it’s a recessive gene.”

Clare gaped at him in surprise. He caught and grinned at her. “Oh I studied, Clarke. Factory wasn’t moving me up in the world just because I’m pretty. I didn’t get bumped to the top of your space spouse list for my abs.”

Clarke couldn’t help but look down to where his soft shirt clung to his stomach. She cleared her throat. “Regardless. I won’t allow anyone to treat you like that. You’re not at their mercy. You’re mine.”

“I’m at your mercy, Clarke?” His grin slipped into a smirk, as if he’d caught her in something. “I thought I wasn’t your slave.”

Her nostrils flared. This man. “You are not my slave. I did not buy YOU, Bellamy, I bought your ticket and I cleared the bureaucracy so I didn’t have to deal with it. Fine. I used my wealth to make my life easier. And you were definitely the top of space spouse list and I used my damn money to get the best husband I could and that is you. I paid THEM for their services. Not your life. You’re not my slave. You’re not my property or my employee. Even though I have more money than you. Had. The money never meant anything to me anyway. This is our life now. Everything I have is yours. I’m your wife. You’re my husband.”

Silence filled their stateroom after her outburst and he stood there, watching her. His breath coming slowly. He was quiet so long she started to get nervous. Her fingers tangled in the nightgown she was still clutching in her hands. 

“I got really lucky,” he finally said, almost reverently, “with you.” Their eyes locked. “I maybe didn’t think very closely about how this could have gone for me, how badly. Who I might have ended up with. Maybe I did think it didn’t matter, it would be the same on Eden as on Factory. I maybe thought you’d be like Shumway, or Echo. Or the rest of the privileged. I never even stopped to think that I might… like you.”

Clarke couldn’t breathe now. She was afraid that if she moved he would stop. And she could tell he had more to say. She wanted to know. 

“I think…” he said. “I think we have a chance to be happy, Clarke.” He laughed like he couldn’t believe it. She bit her lip. “It wasn’t a love match. You found me on a list. Your proposition worked with my needs. I could have said no. But we fit together.” He ran his hand through his hair. “This marriage is real to me, Clarke. I’m all in. Are you?”

That was what she had been fighting all along. She didn’t need to anymore. She took a deep breath. “It’s real to me, too. I want to try for real, Bellamy. I’m in.”

He smiled at her. His eyes were so warm. 

“Can I hug you Bellamy?”

He laughed. “Of course,” he said and didn’t wait for her to come to him. He wrapped his arms around her and she’d never felt so safe. Never. He was strong and kind and smart and she wasn’t quite sure how she’d gotten to be so lucky finding him the way she did, but she was and she wasn’t going to take it for granted. She tucked her nose into the crook of his neck and god he smelled so good.

He ran his hands up and down her back and they stood like that for a while.

“Just saying, Clarke,” he said after a while. “If I get a say in this impregnation thing—“

“Of course you do. You’re my husband. We’re family.” The word sent a bigger thrill through her. 

She felt him nod against her hair. “Okay then, well I’d like to try to do it the old fashioned way.”

She tensed, because god she could push him down on that bed right now and get started. But he must have only felt the tension. He pulled away from her and held onto her shoulders again. So calming and grounding.

“But I want us to wait, and take it slow. Okay? To get to know each other, to get to know Eden, so when we’re ready to have a baby, to make a family like the charter said, we’ll really be ready. And we’ll know who we are to each other and how we work together and everything.”

She didn’t move. She just stared up at him, clutching her nightgown against her stomach so she didn’t reach out. Dammit. 

This was real. It was real. But she had to restrain herself, because Bellamy wasn’t a whore, she hadn’t bought his services at all. He wasn’t her property, he wasn’t a slave and what he wanted mattered. And he wanted to wait. 

She nodded and smiled. “Okay.” It was her politician’s smile. The one that hid her feelings. She didn’t think he knew her well enough to read it, but he narrowed his eyes at her. “That’s a good idea. We’ll take it all one step at a time and get to know each other and our claim. Great plan.”

He looked at her sideways. 

She raised her eyebrows and her chin. “We’re going into cryo sleep tomorrow morning, but when we wake up, we have another two weeks on this ship until the colony, and I will damn sure make it known to Ms. Echo and all the rest of the predatory colonists that you are mine and they are not to touch you.”

He chuckled. “Possessive. Is that what marriage means to you?”

She shook her head. “No. Protective. No one treats my husband like a thing, because he’s wonderful.”

The grin slipped off of his face and he blinked at her. His lips parted like he was having trouble breathing. She tried to make him believe her just by force of will. He shook his head and a small smile quirked the corner of his mouth.

“Go get ready for bed, Clarke. Cryo sleep isn’t restful. They said we need a full night sleep to avoid disorientation upon waking.”

“Okay,” she said. She would let him have it. She had a lifetime to convince him he was wonderful. A lifetime. She turned back to her closet while he slid under the covers of the bed.

He wanted to go slow and get to know each other. She could respect that. No matter how she wanted to kiss him for real, not just a peck here and there for show with the other colonists and officials. She wouldn’t do anything with him that he didn’t want. That was for damn sure, knowing now how he felt about privilege. Knowing his concerns about slavery. The very thought that anything about their partnership— marriage— might make him feel like a whore? She couldn’t bear it. 

She sent a glance towards him and he was settling into bed, getting comfortable. He’d already said how he enjoyed the luxury of the down pillows and was planning to swipe them and stuff them into his duffel. She ducked her head and held back a laugh. 

She wouldn’t do anything he didn’t want. But what if he wanted to? 

She peaked at him one more time and he wasn’t asleep. He was flipping through the pamphlet that prepared them for cryo sleep. He was there. She was here. They would be sharing the bed as they had the whole two weeks they’d been on the ship, but now their marriage was real, not just business.

Clarke pulled her shoulder back and unbuttoned her silky blouse. She did not retreat to the bathroom the way she usually did. She didn’t need to hide from her husband.The blouse slid off of her shoulders and she stowed it. She reached up and let her hair down. She hadn’t cut it in a while. It reached almost to the small of her back. She felt Bellamy’s eyes on her. She didn’t look back at him.

Instead, she pulled her hair around over her shoulder and reached around to release the hook on her bra. She sighed as she took it off and she thought maybe she heard him, drawing a breath. She did not turn around but she smiled to herself as she slipped her skirt down and then her panties. 

They were married. It was real. She would take it slow. Oh she would. 

Clarke took her long thick hair in her hand and pulled it up on top of her head, twisting it into a loose bun, still keeping her back to Bellamy. She turned slightly, so he could see the side of her breast, and then slowly donned her nightgown. 

It covered her to her knees and even the neckline was high, but it was soft and draped over her curves, and she knew he’d been watching and he’d be thinking about what was underneath it. She put everything away like a good spacer, and then locked the wardrobe door. 

When she finally turned around, he was watching her, his eyes dark and heavy. She smiled.

“Tomorrow is going to be a big day,” she said. “We’d better sleep.” 

He cleared his throat and nodded and turned off the light as she slid under the sheets next to him. 

It felt different now. Knowing that this was real. Knowing that this was her husband. Her family. That they were a unit, not just uneasy allies. Before her skin had tingled, knowing she shared a bed with a handsome man who she might some day have sex with. Tonight, it was different. The warmth had settled deeper, inside of her. Somewhere above her stomach. She might almost have said her heart. But she wasn’t going to get sucked in again like that. 

She inched closer to him. She could feel his body heat. 

“I’m glad we’re doing this together, Bellamy. I’m glad it’s you. I have hope for us.”

He began rubbing her arm. “Me too Clarke. Me too. I’m glad you’re my wife.”

She put a hand on his chest. “But if you screw me over,” her voice went gravelly, “I will destroy you.”

He laughed. The bright sound filled the stateroom and it sounded like joy. She could see the gleam of his broad smile in the ship running lights. “That’s my wife,” he said. So proud.

He pulled her all the way into him and wrapped his arms around her so she could cuddle into his broad chest, and it felt so good. 

“That’s my wife,” he murmured again into her temple. Her tension simply drained right out of her. Worries, fears, anger, anxiety. Even that strange buzzing sexual tension. 

She just felt at home, in his arms. As much as she wanted to kiss him and more, she thought that if this was what she was allowed to have right now, she could wait. Because this was good. So good.


	4. Wake Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke and Bellamy have been married for two weeks on this space ship and are just about to go into cryo sleep for the long hyper jump, to the other side of space. When they wake up, forty years will have passed for the rest of the universe, but only a few moments for themselves.
> 
> On the edge of space, on the edge of time, on the edge of their relationship, they create a new life for themselves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I was going to let this sit overnight so I could edit it again tomorrow and I thought, nah. 
> 
> After last night's script to screen destroyed us, I thought I'd give you a world where Clarke and Bellamy do NOT get separated or refuse to talk to each other.   
> And other stuff. ;)

They entered into the cryo hall on schedule, wearing the ship robes. Underneath, they wore nothing but simple underwear. Plain and supportive. Bellamy had seen Clarke in them and far from unattractive, he found them erotic. Like seeing something private, intimate. Not for show. Real. 

But this was not the time to explore his lust for his wife. This was the last few moments on this side of the galaxy the end of this old life. Their pair of cryo tubes stood open only a few feet from them.

Clarke took his hand. He squeezed it and looked over at her. She looked as scared as he was. He smiled and brushed a strand of her golden hair back behind her ear. The rest was tied in a simple braid. He thought she looked lovely. It was easier to look at her than to think about being put to sleep for forty years until they could travel the great distance to their colony planet. 

“They’ll all be dead to us,” Clarke said. 

He frowned at her. “What?”

“The people we’re leaving behind. My mother, my old friends. My ex girlfriend. We’ll go to sleep and when we wake, it will be forty years later and they’ll be dead, or as good as dead.” Sudden tears filled her eyes and he pulled her into his chest. Damn the schedule. 

He patted her hair. He didn’t want to say that it would be okay, because he couldn’t know. So he just held her while the techs stood to the side and let them. They’d probably witnessed a lot of scenes like these. He let her cry herself out. It didn’t take too long. 

“I’m going to miss my mother,” she said. “I’d like to say I’ll miss Lexa, but I think it will more be just the profound weirdness of knowing she is moving on while I stay exactly the same, in suspended animation.” She stifled a giggle. Her fingers flexed against his robe and slid just slightly under the edge to touch his bare skin. He felt a flash of lust. “What about you, Bellamy? Will you miss anyone you left behind?”

“I left no one. Everything I have will be on Eden Colony. But I’m still terrified.”

She dropped her head to his shoulder. “Yeah. I guess we should just get it over with? Once they put us to sleep, we’ll know nothing until we wake up again. The fear will be all gone.”

He stroked her hair. It was soft. “We’ll have new fears.”

Clarke lifted her head to look at him. “But we’ll face those fears together.” There was a slight question to her words, and she glanced quickly down at his lips, then back up to his eyes, tilting her chin up to him just slightly.

She made him smile. She wanted a kiss. It would be their first— or the first real one, all the others given for an act to prove they were married for people they didn’t care about. This one, this one would be Bellamy, giving a kiss to Clarke. Because they were scared and needed to connect and wanted to touch. He found himself wanting it more than any kiss he’d ever had. 

He leaned down and pressed his lips to hers, that’s all. She curled her fingers in the hair at the nape of his neck and when he pulled back, she was smiling too. The tears still in her eyes just made them brighter. “Okay,” she said, “We can do this, right Bellamy?”

He winked at her and took her hand again. They stepped to face the techs, who took their robes and gestured them to take their places. They moved slowly and smoothly, as if it were a dance, and their shiny black hair was pulled back into intricate designs. The older one, a woman, had streaks of silver running through it, almost punctuating the elaborate weaving. Clarke was staring.

The woman helped her into the tube, and Clarke grabbed onto her strong arm.

“Will you be here when we wake up?” 

The woman smiled soothingly. Everything about her was soothing. 

“I? No. I will have passed onto the journey.” Her voice was even, and calm, even talking about her death. “My grandson will be here when you arise.” She nodded towards the other tech, a young man with broad shoulders and a slightly less elaborate hair design. He smiled. It was not nearly as comforting as hers had been, but it was sincere. He reached out a hand for Bellamy, and helped him into his cryo tube. He had a strong grip.

Bellamy lay down. He held onto the man’s elbow. “What’s your name?”

He smiled and looked at his grandmother who nodded her head for him to continue. “I am Kyoto. Grandmother is Yoko. When you arise, I will introduce you to my grandchild, too. We will be watching over you until then.”

The weight of this passage suddenly hit him. They weren’t just traveling through space, but also time. Life was about to change, change utterly.

“Bellamy?” Clarke said from the other chamber, panic in her voice. Bellamy took a deep breath, it was shaky when he released it. He reached out his hand and she stretched out. His fingers barely brushed hers. Their eyes met. 

“Clarke,” he said, with no other words left. 

“Be at ease,” Yoko said. Her voice soft. “When you wake it will be as no time passing at all.”

Clarke’s breath shuddered. “When we wake,” she said, her eyes never leaving his.

“When we wake,” he agreed. Yoko took her hand and folded it on her chest. Kyoto did the same for him. 

“Be at ease,” he said and a hissing sound began. He could smell the lavender infused in the air. It was the first stage of cryo sleep. Meant to calm the sleepers. Bellamy glanced over at Clarke, her face was already relaxed. Her eyes slipping closed. He felt his own shutting. He was only barely aware of the tube sliding shut and sealing.  
***

Mint. Grass. Sunshine. Images fluttered on the inside of his eyelids. The scent of growing things. 

“Bellamy?” Clarke said, and her voice was deep and rough. It did things to him. 

He tried to call her name but his words wouldn’t come. He coughed. Swallowed. A straw was placed between his lips. “Drink.” He did. Clean water. Cool. He was so thirsty. He drank it all until it was removed. “Clarke,” he said. The word came out. He stretched and tried to sit up but his muscles weren’t working. 

“Be at ease,” the voice said, as an arm went around his shoulder to help him up. 

“Bellamy, you’re okay,” Clarke said, he turned his head to her only then realizing that his eyes were still closed. He dragged them open, gritty and stiff. 

“Clarke.” She looked like an angel, with her blonde hair haloed around her head in the light. A cloth ran over his face. It was cool and smelled of herbs. He felt himself waking. “Clarke,” he said again. 

He could see her, sitting up, her bare legs stepping out of the cryo tube, wearing that utilitarian underwear that just served to show how soft and luscious her curves were. He wanted them. 

“Bellamy,” she said.

He sat up and threw his legs over the edge. He wanted to hold her. He wanted her. She was his.

The man with the white hair tied up in knots on his head put his rough, aged hands to Bellamy’s shoulder. “Be still, Bellamy Griffin-Blake. Let your body adjust slowly.”

With one hand still on his shoulder the man pulled a wheeled chair up to his tube. He helped him up, and then down into the seat. He could only stand for a moment before his legs folded beneath him. He sat. The old man smiled and Bellamy knew that smile.

“Kyoto?”

He nodded in assent. “Good. Your mental faculties are returning. Positive recovery. This is my granddaughter, Okyo.” He gestured to the young woman attending Clarke. She seemed almost nervous compared to Kyoto’s serenity. He had not been so serene before Bellamy had slept. He had not been so old. His broad shoulders now slightly stooped. “Okyo, how is Clarke Griffin-Blake faring?”

“Well, grandfather. She would like her husband.”

“Reactions within normal ranges?”

“Above average, grandfather.” 

Kyoto nodded. “Is she ready to go to her stateroom?”

“Yes grandfather.” 

“Proceed.” Kyoto continued to wipe down Bellamy with the scented cloth, attaching sensors to his pulse points and taking readings as he went. Bellamy watched Okyo wheel Clarke out of the room. He felt a profound sense of disorientation and loss.

“Clarke!” he called, too weak to be a yell but he wanted to yell. ‘I need my wife. I need her. I need her.”

Kyoto smiled broadly. “Yes. That is lovely. You shall have her. One moment. I must finish the readings. All seems well.” 

But Kyoto didn’t seem to understand. He NEEDED Clarke. He needed to run his tongue down her pulse to make sure she was there, he needed her ass under his fingers os he could feel her muscles clench. He needed his lips on hers. He needed to be inside of her. “What is wrong with me?” His throat was dry. He swallowed heavily.

“Do not worry. You have been asleep for forty years. You are open right now to your most essential desires. All normal. You love your wife. You feel the need for her to be around. It is beautiful to see that your prime instinct is to be with your wife. This is not so for everyone.” He pressed his lips together briefly but then blinked and was again serene and unshakeable. 

“I need Clarke,” he said again although it wasn’t what he meant to say at all. He made to get out of his chair but Kyoto held him down. 

“We go. Allow your levels of consciousness to wake up slowly. The id comes first. The rest follows. All it takes is time.” And with that, the chair began moving. Kyoto wheeled him through the halls and they were both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. 

“I’m dizzy,” he said.

“Normal. Time is needed.”

And then they were in his state room and his wife was reclining on their bed among the soft pillows. Her hair was loose now and she was running her fingers through it. He sighed in relief and when Kyoto wheeled the chair up to the bed, Bellamy threw himself out of the chair and onto the bed. 

It was very soft. 

“Bellamy,” she said, and her voice was gravelly and low and he wanted to taste it. Her hands reached for him, clutching at him, he climbed his way up the soft bedding to his softer wife. His soft Clarke.

He pressed his lips to her flesh above her heart. “Clarke,” he murmured into her skin. 

“Rest, allow time to revive you.” Kyoto said. “We will return on our rounds. We have other sleepers to wake.” Okyo had already wheeled Clarke’s chair out the door and Kyoto smiled as he closed the door behind them. 

He knew they were gone. He didn’t care. Nothing else mattered but Clarke. He pressed his ear to her heart. “Your heart beat is strong.”

“I missed you,” she said.

He laughed. “You couldn’t have. We just woke up.” He trailed his lips up her chest, up her neck, behind her ear. He pressed a kiss into her temple and pulled her into his arms. She wrapped her arms around waist and nuzzled against his mouth.

“I missed you my whole life. Who are you?”

His heart broke open like a ripe fruit, the seeds spilling out and he took her lips in his and kissed her deep. Deep. As deep as his love. “I’m yours,” he said when he couldn’t breathe any more and had to pull away. She pulled him back in.

“Fuck me.”

He didn’t need any other urging. He stripped off her horrible sexy underwear and his own and although he was disoriented and the room spun, this was clear and right. He slid into her and she gasped and clutched at him and they rocked together against the universe. He felt complete. Their fingers interlaced. He didn’t think he would ever let her go. 

“Bellamybellamybellamybellamy…”she cried over and over again into his ear, softly as she fell apart around him and he fell apart into her and they were stardust and light and meant to be. 

When he came back to himself, he wasn’t sure how long it had been that he’d lain, softening inside of her, petting her every where, kissing her silky sweet skin. She panted beneath him, murmuring how she wanted to touch him how she wanted to know him to feel him. 

Her hair was golden and soft. She still wore her bra. It hadn’t mattered. Her panties were gone and his underwear was gone too. The room was slightly chill. He rolled off of her and lay on his back next to her feeling on the edge of something. He pulled the blankets up around their shoulders.

Her breath was normal now. “That was the first time we did that.” 

“I think this was the disorientation they warned us about.”

She chuckled low and the sound snagged something inside of him and nearly made him growl in response. “I think that was our primal desires, Bellamy.”

He clenched his teeth to keep from sucking on her lower lip and learning the way she felt under his hands, everywhere. “I thought we agreed to take it slow, Clarke.”

“I think your id had other ideas,” her laugh this time was bright and happy. It pulled the happiness out of him too. She spread her hand over his chest. “Come on, Bellamy. We’re committed. We’re married. We’re obviously attracted to each other. We don’t have to be in love to do that again.”

Her ran his hands through is hair. It was tangled like crazy. The thing that disturbed him was that he definitely felt like he was in love. He felt in over his head. “But we said we were going to get to know each other first.”

She took his hands out of his hair and began working through the snarls. “We are. And sex is a bonding activity. It connects two people. We can get to know each other better, and this can help. Look, I’m grooming you.” She ran both hands through his hair and he felt like melting into her. “Interpersonal development. It wouldn’t have happened without the sex.” 

He had to laugh. “Clarke, do you have a one track mind?”

She raised her eyebrows. “With you naked in my bed I do.” She took a deep breath and sat back. “Okay. I do. I want you. You’re beautiful. But I like you too. Oh these levels of consciousness must be waking up because I’m remembering why we didn’t do that before.”

He liked the way her breasts pushed up against her supportive bra when she did that. He kind of wanted to see them. He really wanted to see them. He clenched his jaw. “Why didn’t we?”

“Because I respect you and you are not my possession or whore or employee or anything. I want you but I don’t want you if you don’t want me.”

“I don’t think the cryo sleep is totally worn off yet, because I’m pretty sure you never would have told me that if your defenses weren’t lowered.”

“Maybe we should be honest with each other. Or maybe we got lucky again. Bellamy, when I said I wanted this to be a real marriage, I meant I wanted this too. I can wait if you need to, but now I know how you feel and how you taste…” she gasped. “No I don’t think it’s worn off yet. I’m finding you so hard to resist right now.”

“Okay,” he said. He was more awake. He knew the reasons he’d had before why they shouldn’t do this, but they didn’t seem like very good reasons anymore. “Don’t resist.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.” He slid up to her and kissed her again, this time he knew what he was doing, he wasn’t drunk with her, but god she felt so great. 

She smiled under his lips. The kiss faltered. But that felt great too. “You ready to go again so soon? After being asleep for forty years?”

She shook his head. “I kinda just want to make out until we get to Eden. That okay with you?”

She hummed an agreement then reached behind her to unfasten her bra. She slipped it off and tossed it to the floor. “That okay with you?” 

He groaned instead of answering, and then he spent his time learning his wife’s skin, and what made her shiver in pleasure.


	5. Building A Home Together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke and Bellamy land on Eden. It's hard work building their stake, but they have it handled.  
> Until they don't.

Clarke looked at Bellamy from where she was strapped in on the landing shuttle, and a thrill went through her. None of this was supposed to be as exciting as it was. It was supposed to be her moving past her disastrous life with romantic partners and familial turmoil, grief and professional loss. She was supposed to feel like a failure.

Instead, she was sitting across from her new husband who made her blood sing, flying through the atmosphere of a planet 120 light years away from her home system, with blue green vegetation and navy oceans. She leaned across the aisle and whispered loudly to him. “The skies are pink.”

The smile he turned on her took her breath away. He rolled his eyes. “The skies are blue. The clouds are pink. Or a kind of rosy tan. You’re always so dramatic, Clarke.” 

She laughed. Delighted. “Beautiful,” she said. 

“No, you are,” he answered, his eyes warm.

She’d meant him. And he knew it. He reached across the aisle and took her hand. 

She couldn’t believe she got to have this. Not only a claim on a new colony and the chance to help populate a planet, but also him. This relationship. This person she would do anything for. Anything, if she could make him happy. It was a miracle.

He squeezed her hand.

They’d spent a good portion of the last two weeks of their cruising and orbiting time in their state room. Fucking. They only attended the ship functions they were required to for the charter. The official celebrations and the colonists workshops. They tried not to act like too much of a couple on their honeymoon, since they were supposed to have been together for two years before they even boarded this ship, but it was hard when all she wanted to do was stare at him and touch him. He didn’t let her out of his reach, either. They were together. It was clear.

Clarke had managed to growl at Echo enough that she finally got the picture that Bellamy was not and never would be any sort of service stud for her needs. 

Clarke still had enough pull with her family’s political standings that she got her way. For the last week, most people left them alone completely, and she was just fine with that. She got to be just with Bellamy. And he was all she wanted. Their claim was nowhere near the major settlements. She’d seen the maps. It was farther out on a distant continent. Isolated. She would probably never see any of these colonists again. Diana Sydney must have been trying very hard to get away from the scandal that took her down, and now she and Bellamy would benefit from her efforts.

“Is that our farm?” Bellamy asked. He pointed out the window on his side. The claim was supposed to be for farming. There was a landing pad, and a tumble down pile of rubble. The valley was a riot of deep green vegetation mounding over things. She wasn’t sure what. 

“That’s it. We’re here,” she breathed. She leaned over as far as the harness would let her but the view of their claim passed the window. Bellamy continued to look.

“I thought this was a new new claim. That no one had ever farmed it before. Someone obviously tried to work this land. What happened to them?”

She blew out a breath. “I don’t know. But at least we already have a landing pad. That’s one thing we don’t have to fabricate and it will make disembarking easier.”

“That landing pad wasn’t marked on the map they gave us. You’d think they’d have that drawn up at least. And that pile of rubble. Looks like it used to be a house or a barn or something. Whoever worked this land last is gone now. I don’t trust it.” He scowled at the land. He scowled at the planet. 

Clarke bit her lip. The first thing he’d done when they’d landed was ask the Eden officials to look up his sister. Bellamy had left his Factory Station because his sister had fallen in love with an Eden Colonist and run off with him. Four years ago. Four and forty years ago. 

He’d given her up for dead until he realized he had no one left on Factory Station to stay for and every reason to sign up as a space spouse. When Clarke asked him to come to Eden with her, he thought of seeing his sister again. He didn’t talk about her. Clarke thought that maybe he was afraid to hope.

“Maybe they were wrong, Bellamy. Maybe she’s alive. They said her claim was destroyed but they never found her body.” 

He clenched his jaw and she wanted to run her fingers over the tight muscles there to relax him. He had maybe been right about getting to know each other before having sex, because they’d been having so much sex since they woke up, that his request to the Eden Charter official was the first time she’d heard that Octavia had been a colonist herself. That he’d been hoping to reunite with his baby sister. She wanted to talk to him about it, but they hadn’t had a moment of privacy since then, and all she’d been able to find out was that Octavia was supposed to be here, on Eden. She wanted to talk to him, to comfort him, but surrounded by colonists, officials and now the shuttle crew as they’d been since landing, she hadn’t had the chance. She sighed. They’d have time. Together. Alone. Free.

She took his hand again and held on. He clung to her. 

***

They’d been on their claim for a week. A week of back breaking labor, clearing the ground for the fabricators to be able to build their home. Sleeping at night in a corner of the shipping canister that had carried all their supplies 120 light years across the universe, with a tarp hung up over the open end so they could get fresh air and not stifle. They built a fire like some sort of ancient settlers, and ate their colony rations, looking up at all the new constellations in the inky sky. 

It was beautiful and exhausting and they fell asleep every night in each other’s arms. No time for relaxation or talking about more than what their plans were the next day. No energy for sex, although they tried that first night, and he fell asleep while she was kissing him. She was so tired, she didn’t even mind and just crawled under the blankets, sighing into his chest and passing out right along with him.

Bellamy had wanted them to start with a small dwelling. Just a bare cabin, so they had a place to settle in while the rest of the dwellings were built by the fabricator. He wanted to build it slow, but the charter had said shelter was the most important thing, and needed to be done before the monsoons came in off of the volcanic ridges, bringing the HnO3 storms. 

The fabricator took a day to build a section of the house. A room of the main house or a cabin if they wanted it to be separate. Little slanted houses that stacked up against each other and almost seemed organically grown. They couldn’t stop to cure the dwellings at each addition, though. It took three days to cure. 

“We should get ourselves set up for the long haul Clarke. A small cabin means we don’t have to rush. This is a marathon, not a sprint. We want to be under a solid roof before the monsoon season.”

Clarke glared at him. It was their first argument as a married couple. Things weren’t as simple once they got out of bed, off the luxury ship, and onto the surface. “We’ve got time to build the whole house, and then cure the whole thing in one pass of the curing polymer, though, Bellamy. Three days for the whole thing, instead of three time each addition. I’ve checked the weather reports.” She showed him her tablet, with the volcanic activity and growing clouds off in the largest ocean. “I’ve timed it. And that means we can set up the tech and laboratory in the house, and use the monsoon season to get our breeding program started and start growing our seedlings. IF we hurry.” She’d researched it all. This was the most efficient way to get their claim productive and ensure that they would survive. “If we stop and cure a cabin, or every room before moving on, stopping and starting, it will take forever and the storms will beat us and we won’t be able to get a jump start on the fertilized embryos. It will set us back months and months.”

“We need to start with our basic needs, now. And that’s a cabin. And then we can relax. The future will care for itself, Clarke, and we’ll take it as it comes. In its own time, step by step.” He was intimidating when he growled at her like that, and as much as she found him attractive, with all that force of personality, she knew what needed to be done and she was not backing down. 

“No, Bellamy. We need to take care of it, now. Nothing is assured, and you know it. We can get this done. We can do it. ”

She wondered if he was impressed by her fierce face the way she was impressed by his. He must have been, because he shook his head and subsided. But his concerns were valid. Clarke and he doubled their work pace, collapsing into their bedroll every night as the sun went down with stiff muscles and blisters turning to callouses. They woke up when the sun crested the pink horizon every morning, ate the nutritious and unexciting rations, and then got back to work. They would relax when their home was built. And it almost was.

Bellamy dug the foundations and Clarke hacked at the blue green vines, using a hoe to rip them away from the next spot to be cleared for the fabricator. The vines were tough and relentless, not at all the crop they were supposed to be growing. There was no nutritional value to them at all, they just grew and grew and grew over everything. As they cleared them, they’d find ruins gone to rubble underneath them, and pile them off to the side for crushing and reforming into matrix materials for the fabricator. On one particularly gruesome morning, Bellamy discovered a whole field of bones from a herd of some animal, covered over, grown through, by the weeds.

As they pulled up more and more of the weeds to discover the whole herd, Clarke watched his face go blank.

She knew he was thinking about his sister. Who disappeared from her claim without even bones to be found. Clarke hadn’t gotten a chance to talk to him about her. He hadn’t volunteered to talk about it either. They were both so tired. She stepped up to him and rested her head on his shoulder. It was okay to not talk right now.

“I think these are those native cattle.” 

“Not cattle,” he said gruffly. Tossing the bone in his hand onto the pile of other bones to be burnt later.

“No, clearly not cattle, they are an alien animal, but close enough to cattle that we have hybrid embryos bioengineered with cow DNA so that we can drink the milk.”

“Not milk. They’re not mammals, so it’s not milk.”

Clarke rolled her eyes. Bellamy was argumentative. It was annoying. “Fine. Not milk, but nutritious anyway. They were livestock. This was a farm. This was like the farm we want to build.” 

And it was gone now. 

They shrugged it off. And went back to work. All they did was work. Too tired to talk. Too pressured by colony charter warnings to build their shelter first. The storms were coming.

They cleared the last field for the fabricator, just in time.

Clarke stood up and stretched her aching and painful hands and looked up at their house. The sloping walls looked odd after a life on space station, like something from an old movie set in the desert. 

Bellamy came up to stand next to her. “It looks good Clarke.”

She leaned up against his strong chest to him no matter how tired and sweaty she was. He was covered in dirt too, and he wrapped his arm around her anyway. They didn’t care anymore. “It’s our home,” she said. She liked how the nearly white walls looked in the sharp light from the sun. As a spacer, she’d never realized how solid the sun looked as it came through the atmosphere. You could see the light beams. The house sprawled under the alien sun that was their new life. She felt welcomed. “It’s our home, Bellamy.”

Bellamy kissed her cheek and she wasn’t going to let him get away with that. She turned fully in his arms and pulled him down for a real kiss.

When they broke apart, he smiled and nodded. “I like this,” he said “I like us building something from scratch. Back on the other side of the universe, everything was already made. There was no where to spread out. No way to be free from the stations and the politics and wars going on that had nothing to do with us. But here?” He looked up at the clouds, a deep rose today and swirling with a cool wind as they filled in the blue bowl of the sky. “Here we can have something.”

“I feel so lucky, Bellamy.”

“Even though we’re so tired we can hardly move? And you’re covered in dirt, head to toe.” He tweaked her nose and laughed. “I can’t believe I thought you were a princess.”

“I might be a princess, Bellamy, but I will work hard for something that’s important. For this. For you.” 

The fabricator finished it’s last zoom zoom chug and stopped at the top of the house. Bellamy and Clarke watched, their arms around each other as the machine slid over on it’s scaffolding to wait, empty, in the plot they’d just cleared. The last section of the house. “That will be the lab. That’s where our livestock will be bred,” she said and he hugged her. She could see through an open doorway, wet with compound, to the cozy arches of the rooms beyond.   
Bellamy sighed. “I guess I’d better refill the machine. If we get this done tonight, then tomorrow we can cure the whole house. I’ll feel a lot better once we do that.” He let go of her and turned to go, stretching and groaning so that she laughed at his dramatics. She watched him head to the shipping container with the barrow to bring back the fabricating compound. The clouds were beautiful, very vibrant and they swirled against the nearly purple blue sky. Sparks went through the clouds. 

She watched, in awe. Lightning flashes lit the horizon up. She’d never seen lightning in real life before and it was stunning. The clouds rapidly filled the sky. She hadn’t realized how fast they were moving. She stopped.

“Bellamy!” she called, fear striking her. “Bellamy!” 

He came out of the container. “What is it Clarke?”

But she was too busy running for the tarp they used to cover the fabricator every night before they went to bed, to be safe. The storms were here. She grabbed the tarp and hauled it up the ladder.

“Clarke, what are you doing!”

She pointed over his shoulders. “The storms, Bellamy!”

The tarp was too heavy for her and the weight of it dragged her down as she tried to haul it up over the machine. She was relieved the house was only the one story plan, and she didn’t have to climb too high pulling the tarp behind her. Thank goodness for small favors.

The wind began whipping and the tarp pulled out of her blistered hands.

“Dammit!”

She jumped back to the ground and caught it as it snaked around on the black soil. She wrestled it back up the ladder.

“What are you doing?” 

“The storms are full of HnO3! They’re corrosive to metal. They’ll eat the fabricator up.”

He glared at her and shook his head. She thought he was going to stop her, instead, he grabbed the other end of the tarp and started climbing up the rigging on the other side of the fabricator. Together they fastened the heavy sheet over the machine, the wind fighting them all the way and the stinging acidic rain prickling their skin. He slid down the ladder.

“It’s good enough, Clarke!” he yelled as she tried to tack down another edge, wincing as a fat drop of acid rain hit her cheek. “Come on, we have to get under cover. This rain isn’t any good for us, either.” The tarp was staying at least. She met him down on the ground.

“But the house, Bellamy. It hasn’t been cured yet. It’s going to degrade in the storm.” She started for another tarp. At least they could cover part of it. They might have enough tarp left to cover at least the main room and kitchen. The way they were fabricated, they’d probably be able to stand even if the rest dissolved in the storm completely.

“No time for that, look.” He pointed to the woods around them and the opaque smudge of reddish brown rain. A deluge hiding the foliage and rushing towards them. “We have to take shelter.” 

She gasped. It was almost upon them. Bellamy grabbed her hand and they ran for the shipping container. They made it just before the rain came down in earnest, pulling the tarp down over the open shipping containers.

“We left so many crates out in the open,” Clarke said. 

He pursed his lips and shook his head. “We got careless. We thought because it wasn’t in space we didn’t have to be careful.”

The wind blew and the tarp snapped open. The rain poured like buckets, a slick rosy haze covered the meadow, hiding the the edge of the woods entirely. Clarke gasped. “Our house.”

It was already dissolving. Runnels of brown running down the slanted walls, turning into ridges. The corners softening, turning into sludge and melting into a slump of compound.

Bellamy cursed and pulled the tarp back, tying it down to the edge of the container. He turned to Clarke and pulled her into his chest.

“We should have done what you said and cured the house section by section,” she said into his chest. “We’d have a cabin now, and probably the kitchen. We would have only lost one room. You were right. I was wrong.”

Bellamy didn’t say he’d told her so, although he had. He just ran his fingers through her hair and held her. 

“Is this the monsoon season already? It’s early. The reports gave us another week. I planned it Bellamy.”

“Plans always go wrong.”

She grabbed onto his shirt. “In my world, when plans go wrong, you pay someone to fix them. There’s no one to fix these plans. And no money left to pay for the fixing.”

He rubbed her back. “Welcome to my world, Babe.”

“You’re not going to call me princess?”

“I feel like that would be rubbing it in.”

She felt the tears running down her cheek. They stung the welt from the acid rain. “Is this really the monsoon season already? It lasts for weeks. How are we going to live in the shipping container for all that time? Bellamy. We’re screwed.”

He wiped her tears and she winced. “We’ll figure it out.” 

He made her dig out the medical module so they could treat their acid scalds with alkaline wash. The rain wasn’t normally this acidic, but in monsoon season, it was full of the HnO3 from the volcanic activity, a regular occurrence. They’d come equipped with what they needed to treat it. Normally, with shelter, it wouldn’t be a problem. But they were too exposed. They got out the oxygen tanks, too, because the gasses could be noxious and the crate had no air filters or systems like they had been building into their house, that was now turning into a puddle of goo. Dammit. 

Once it hit the ground and soaked in, the HnO3 would be good for the land. The rain would turn into fertilizer and was one of the things that made this planet so rich and fertile. But they were not prepared. Not at all. What was good for growing plants here was not so good for humans who were exposed without decent shelter. 

When there was a slight break in the down pour, they ran out and cleared up as many of the crates as they could, and refastened the tarp over the fabricator. They were going to need it. The house was already a loss. It was melting. All that building compound just washing away. 

When it started raining again, they didn’t even try to save anything else, they just retreated to their shipping container, mostly filled with supply crates. There was no cheery campfire anymore. Just a tarp lashed down over the opening, slapping in the wind, a cold meal of colony rations, and stinging skin. And sadness. Clarke was sad. She tucked herself in Bellamy’s arms and listened to the rain pound on the roof of the shipping container, completely demoralized. 

The daylight filtering through the tarp was fading when they heard the noise.

“You hear that?” Bellamy asked, standing up from their spot on the crates. “What is that?”

“Is that an engine?”

Bellamy was already at the tarp, unlacing it. Two short sharp honks sounded. 

Clarke pressed up behind him and looked out into the storm. A rugged vehicle idled in front of their container.

The door opened. A girl peeked out, olive skinned and dark eyed, face like an angel. Her voice was harsh and impatient. “Hey, fresh meat. Your house melted.”

“The monsoon came ahead of schedule.”

The girl shook her head, a pony tail swishing. “Yeah it does that. Welcome to Eden. Get in the rover.”

“What?” Bellamy was suspicious. Bellamy was always suspicious. She thought he might be right about it usually but they didn’t really have a choice now.

“You can’t stay here. I’m taking you to my stake until we can deal with this.”

“We?”

“Yeah, we, stud. We’re in the colonies, now. Not some dumbass space station where everyone’s out for whatever they can get. We’re all you got. Lucky you. I’m going to save your ass. Get in, before you pass out from lack of air circulation in that plastic box. Was that really your back up plan?”

“Bellamy?” Clarke said, wanting to trust the girl but doubting her own wisdom at this point in the disaster. He nodded. Clarke ran and got her med kit, because the truth was they were already feeling the effects of the acid rain and she kind of needed some O2, then, pulling a jacket over head, ran though the rain to the rover. Bellamy was right behind her.

“Close that container unless you want it to be all gone by the time you get back. And lock it.” Bellamy didn’t even question her. He just slammed the doors shut and fastened them all tight.

“Why do we need to lock it to keep it safe from acid rain?”

The girl looked at her like she was crazy. Bellamy slid in beside Clarke.

“Is she for real?” 

Bellamy glared at the girl and pulled Clarke into his side.

Clarke sighed, frustrated. “Of course. Human nature. Sorry. I forgot this wasn’t an actual eden and was just a less populated settlement. There must be colonists who are… scavengers. I just thought we were far enough out…” she decided to stop trying to explain herself. Bellamy was right. She was a princess. She stuck out her hand. “I’m Clarke, this is Bellamy. We’re the Griffin-Blakes. Thanks for rescuing us.”

The girl cocked her head and looked at them both before shaking Clarke’s hand. 

“Raven. Raven Reyes.”


	6. Luckiest Son Of A Bitch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Raven saves Clarke and Bellamy, and takes them home to meet her team of delinquents. Just as he expected, Eden never was the eden it pretended to be.

Clarke was treating Bellamy’s fresh acid rain scalds, irrigating them with alkaline wash and touching up his ointment, as best she could while the rover bumped her up and down. He tried to get her to stop, he could wait, but she glared at him, so he let her. The storm raged on outside of the rover.

Raven Reyes drove through the storm, through the heavy hanging trees and over the wild landscape, seemingly without a road, but she seemed to know where she was going.

“Why are you helping us?” he said, and his voice was deeper than normal, harsh with the fumes. Clarke shook her head and dug out the oxygen from the med kit. 

Raven glance at him and then back to the black, stormy night out in front of them. “Because when I first landed, someone helped me. And because of that, I survived. You are now obligated to help the next person.” The look she sent him this time had steel in it. “Whether you like it or not.”

Bellamy batted the oxygen mask away. “You’re taking a risk. You don’t know us.”

She nodded. “I’m taking a risk.”

Clarke dropped the oxygen mask she was trying to force onto Bellamy and narrowed her eyes at him. She turned to Raven. 

“You’re not taking a risk with us. We’re here to build a better world. Of course we will help other colonists. This is about survival.”

Raven blinked and looked at Bellamy. “So she is serious.”

Raven rolled her eyes and went back to driving. 

His wife was serious. She believed in a better world and she made him believe in a better world, too. “She’s right. The risk is yours, to trust us, but we won’t betray you.”

She sniffed. “I figured you for a grunt. Space spouse? You’ve got that air about you.”

Bellamy pressed his lips together and refused to answer, but pulled Clarke closer to him. 

“She’s for sure a princess. With that rosy tinted view of hers. Building a better world.” She chuckled and drove out of the trees onto a rutted path. The clouds were roiling above them and still releasing a torrent of murky rain. “But you? You know better. Don’t you.”

He grit his teeth.”I do know better. But I know also that we’re here, when we shouldn’t be. And we’re together, and we get to make something here. Make something real.”

“Ah. I see. It’s contagious.” She shook her head like he’d come down with an incurable illness. “Listen up, Blake-Griffins. This Eden? This isn’t an eden. There’s nobody here with better impulses. We’re all just in it to survive, okay? And the colony charter? Our government? They don’t care about landing colonist in the acid monsoon season, unprepared and without a clue about how to deal with it.”

“But we took training classes,” Clarke said, and Bellamy was almost embarrassed because it was clear she was trying to make Eden better than it was. 

But what Raven said had the ring of truth in it. He knew, because that was the way it was. That was the way it always was.

Clarke’s fingers dug into Bellamy’s arm and he unclenched them, smoothing them out and taking them in his hand. She grabbed on when she was tense.

“And that’s why they put you down on your claim without shelter only one week before monsoon season came? Never even told you that it the acid clouds don’t move like normal weather patterns and are erratic depending upon the subterranean volcanic activity?” Raven shook her head and snorted. “If you die before the trial period is over, they take your claim and all your supplies and sell them back to the new colonists. They make a profit. A huge profit. Your claim fees, all of your supplies that didn’t get destroyed in the monsoon. You didn’t even have time to get your shipping container unloaded. That’s how unprepared you were. They would have just flown back and picked the thing up to be sold to the next round of colonists.” “They call themselves The Chosen Ones, and they call you Fresh Meat. Remember that’s the world you came to. There are no better natures here.”

Clarke sat up and cocked her head at the girl. “That’s not true,” she said, her voice full of wonder. “You’re here.”

“What the fuck?” Raven said and looked at Clarke like she’d offended her. 

“Why didn’t you wait until we succumbed to the fumes or the acid rain, and then come out and scavenge our container. I spent my whole fortune on that. It’s worth a lot. After the claim and the flight. It could have been yours. You could have watched us from the safety of this rover and let us die, and then take whatever you wanted before the charter ever came to check on whether we’d survived the monsoon season or not. 

“But you didn’t. You came to save us.” Clarke nodded. Sure suddenly. “I trust you. And I promise, you can trust us.”

Raven wouldn’t look at her. Bellamy could tell she was flustered. His wife had just laid her pure motivations bare, and she didn’t like feeling that vulnerable. Bellamy knew because that’s how he would have felt if he had been in Raven’s shoes. Because the truth was, there was something hopeful about Clarke, and she made you want to believe, even while you knew that believing in something left you open to attack. 

He kissed her temple. 

Raven pulled her rover into a big hangar. She turned the vehicle off and opened the door. “Come on. We need to get you out of those wet clothes. You’re gonna have burns.” Fine. She didn’t want to talk about it. He ducked his head. His wife got under his defenses too.

“We have our med kit. I’m a doctor.”

Raven looked up. “Really?

“Yes. A medical doctor. I was a medical researcher on Polis Station, but I have practical training too.” 

She huffed out a laugh. “That’s good to know. Come on.”

Bellamy hoped out of their side of the rover but Clarke didn’t follow him. He turned around to see.

“What happened?” Clarke was asking Raven, looking at her in concern. Raven glared, and turned her back, lifting her dead leg with her hands until it was hanging over the edge of rover. She grabbed some canes from the door and hooked them onto her arms.

“One of my machines exploded. I took shrapnel in my back. My leg doesn’t work, but I do a pretty good job with this brace and canes.”

“Have you seen a doctor?” Clarke slid over to her on the seat and looked like she wanted to examine her. Bellamy came around the other side.

“Can’t afford one. It takes too much time to get out to the city anyway. Time away from the farm means we’re left short. A traveling medic saw to it, but there wasn’t much he could do.” Raven went to jump out of the rover but Bellamy was there. He steadied her with an arm to help her down. She looked up at him in surprise. “Thanks. I could have made it.”

“I’m sure you could have, but I’m here. I’ll help you. You helped us. Right? Obligated.”

She made a face and began limping away. “Come on, both of you. Let’s get you set up for your sleepover. You don’t even have sleeping rolls, but we’ve got them. You’ll be in the common room.”

Clarke crawled out with her med kit and followed Raven, clearly itching to help. Bellamy pulled back to step in line with her. “Give her time Clarke. She’s our neighbor, and she already saved our lives once. Let her get used to us before you try to fix her.”

Clark nodded, breathing out sharply. “Yeah. You’re right.” 

Raven lead them out of the garage and down a covered walkway. The storm raged around them but they stayed dry. Her house was a cluster of multiple cubes, with the distinctive sloped walls of the fabricator, all tumbled up together. The windows drawn tight with shutters. 

At the door, a man stood. “About time, Reyes.” He shook his head and looked them up and down. “They look like drowned rats. I don’t know what you were thinking.”

Raven nodded and pushed past him. “Turns out this one’s a doctor, so joke’s on you. That’s a damn useful skill out here. I told you I knew what I’m talking about. You should trust me more.”

He snorted and looked them up and down again. “Doctor, huh?”

Clarke nodded and held out a hand to shake. “Doctor Clarke Griffin. Griffin-Blake. This is my husband, Bellamy Blake. We’re very grateful for the help you and your wife have offered us. We’ll help you out in any way we can.”

He snorted. “My wife? She wishes. No. Raven contracted us to help her work her claim. I’m John Murphy. Call me Murphy. Emori is inside, watching the food while I keep an eye out for the fresh meat. She’s not so good with strangers. So, you’re the strangers. What about you stud? You got any special skills?”

Bellamy shook his head. “Nope. Worked in polymer sprocket manufacturing. Then the guard. Then as a janitor.” He kind of wanted them all to stop assuming things about them. He kind of wanted them to stop calling him fresh meat. 

Instead, John Murphy looked impressed. “Hey Raven, I thought these guys were going to be all those useless rich people, again.”

“I think Clarke is,” Raven said.

“I’m not useless,” Clarke snapped.

“Not if you’re a doctor. Not sure how much sense you have, so we’ll have to keep you alive so you can be useful. But this one’s a grunt. Grunts are useful down here on Eden, where it’s all work to be done, and less sitting back and telling people what to do.”

“I work.” Clarke held up her hands and showed him her callouses and blisters.

“Uh huh. Sure, princess. So she order you from the agencies?” Murphy asked, looking him up and down again like he was on sale. “I’m surprised, usually they go for the pretty ones without much behind the pretty face. Pretty is about as useless as rich down here. But they keep sending us the pretty and rich. What the hell do they think is happening here? A resort festival?” He laughed to himself. “Did you pick a worker because you’re smart, or did you pick him because of his pretty face and you got lucky?”

“I picked him because he’s the best in every way. And I got lucky.” Clarke put an arm around his waist and raised her chin. She pressed her hand to his chest over his heart.

Bellamy stared at Clarke. So they were telling people that he was a mail order bride now. That was a new development. But then, neither Raven nor Murphy were surprised. This Murphy guy was kind of a prick, but at least he was honest. Bellamy agreed with Murphy’s assessment of the world. “Just how many space spouses do you get down here? We thought we were the only ones.”

Murphy laughed. “No. I’d say 25%.”

“More like 40%. Sometimes you can’t tell because they’re not as pretty. Pretty costs money. People like to skimp. Joke’s on them all. The less pretty ones often do better down here. They do whatever they have to.”

“Jesus, Clarke maybe we didn’t have to fake it at all.”

“Oh no, you did. You still do. Until your trial period is over or they can take everything. Keep your lies. Fake marriages will get you through. You can figure out your dissolution later.”

“Dissolution? What is that? Divorce?”

“No divorce down here. Dissolution. Someone has to be unchartered and set loose. They can get married to someone else, get contracted out to work on someone’s stake or signed on to a guild— like they wanted me for the mechanic’s union, but I fought for this stake. I’m keeping it. Or you end up in Comfort Town selling out your services on a case by case basis. Be careful, stud. If she puts you aside, the charter always favors the partner who paid the tab.”

Clarke straight up growled. Murphy and Raven looked at her, shocked. “I’m not putting him aside. He’s my family. He’s my husband.” She clutched at his shirt over his heart and caught his skin. He took her hand, carefully in his, stroking his thumb over her knuckles.

“We’re partners, no matter how we found each other. We’re a team. Nothing is getting dissolved.”

Clarke let out a shaky breath. “Except our house.” 

Bellamy put his own arm around her and pulled her into him. Kissing her temple. They would figure it out. 

“Holy shit, Raven. I think they’re a love match. Bought on the open market and fallen in love.” He started laughing. “That is awesome. Oh they’re full of surprises. This is gonna be fun.”

Raven looked at them and then pursed her lips. “Yeah. Sure. Love matches are great.” Bellamy didn’t know what she meant but she spun on her good leg and limped into the house on her canes. “Come meet Emori.” He was perfectly happy to skip over the love match comment. He was worried about his own feelings, but he Clarke had never mentioned anything of the sort. They were committed. It didn’t have to be a love match. They could be just as good a partnership without being in love. Better even. Love was a pain, and best avoided. Bellamy and Clarke walked into the house.

It was roomier than he expected. The ceiling arched up higher than he was used to, living on a dirt colony. Even on the luxury liner, ceilings were low. Space was at a premium, including headspace. He couldn’t even touch this ceiling. A pretty girl with tattoos on her face came through a far door, a spoon in her hand.

“This the new neighbors?” she asked, nodding her chin in their direction. 

“I’m Clarke. This is my husband Bellamy. Thanks for having us.”

“Hmm,” She grunted. “Not my plan. I’ve seen too many people come and go. They’re not cut out for life out here on the edge of civilization. Thank Raven.”

“We did,” Bellamy said. 

“She’s a doctor,” Murphy said. “And he’s a worker.”

Emori eyed him up and down. “She a smart doctor?”

“I’m right here,” Clarke snapped, glaring at them. “I’d appreciate if you would stop talking about me as if I’m not. And as if I were some princess who’s too sheltered to make it out here. I’m going to make it. I’m going to do the work.”

“We’re going to make it,” Bellamy added. “I’ll make sure of that.” 

“We’re going to make it. We don’t give a shit about the charter or about the other side of the universe or status or anything. This is our home now and we’re going to survive, so you can just fucking stop talking about us like we’re fresh meat.”

Emori smiled. “She’s a bitchy doctor. I like it. Hey John, can you check the stew, I think it’s missing something.” She turned around and went back in the door she came out of. Murphy followed her happily.

A door on the other side of the room, next to a fireplace, opened and another couple came in, carrying a plastic jug and a basket of greens. 

“Hey, Raven! The moonshine is done! Perfect for our monsoon party!”

They looked up and stopped short when they saw Clarke and Bellamy standing there. 

“Who are they?” The woman said. She had blonde hair braided off to the side. 

“Are these our neighbors?” The man asked, putting his jug down on a table and walked over to them, hand out. “My name is Monty and this is my wife Harper.”

“I’m Bellamy.” Monty’s handshake was firm.

“Clarke Griffin-Blake.” She smiled when she shook Monty’s hand. He smiled back.

He turned to Raven. “So you did go to check on them.”

“Good thing, too. They didn’t get their house done in time and it melted in the storm.”

“Of course they didn’t get it done in time. The charter set them down a week ago. How in the world were they supposed to know.”

“Thank you!” Clarke said. 

“They did it to us, too,” Harper said and came over to hug Clarke. Clarke looked surprised, but hugged her back. “We ended up losing our claim, but not our lives. And now we’re contracted with Raven. Raven always saves the day.”

Raven ignored that. “It’s too bad, it looked like a pretty great house. Lots of room. All sludge now.”

“That’s not important anymore,” Bellamy said. “The question is, what is our next step.”

Raven looked at him and nodded slowly. “Good. You’re practical. The next step is we ride out the first wave of storms here. You get to camp in our common room. Then when there’s a break in the weather, the Monsoon season usually starts off slowly, so after this first storm, you should have like a week, we get back over there, make sure the tribes haven’t stolen your crap… which probably not, they’ll be waiting for the break in the weather too… and then we get your house up. Fast. One cabin. Organize your supplies. Set up defenses. Batten everything down. You can probably get a barn up on the next break, we’ll check the weather bands and do some of our calculations to predict the duration. When the monsoon season is over, we ride back into town and sell all your useless crap so you can buy what you really need. Monty says the monsoon season should be pretty mild this season.”

“You can predict it? I thought you couldn’t.”

“Monty can predict it. He’s a scientist like you.”

“Engineering, computers, communication.”

“All practical, even though he came from money.” Raven nodded, pleased. “And Harper has military training. That’s why I contracted them on. Monty does the calculations so we can make our plans.”

“Why can’t the charter predict it then?” Clarke asked. 

Raven just looked at her. She looked so confused. But Bellamy wasn’t.

Of course they had predicted it. “So this is all just some big scam. They bilk colonists out of their savings and leave them to die, then take their gear and sell the land back to the next suckers.” Bellamy didn’t know why he had thought it would be any different here. He looked at Clarke who focused her grim gaze upon him. 

Right. She was why he had thought it would be different. She was why he had thought maybe the universe might actually be a good place where good things happened and the people who were supposed to care for you actually did so. She was why he forgot about the way the world really was.

“Not everybody dies. Everyone here is proof of that. And we’re not going to die either. We’re going to beat them, and we’re going to survive. And you know what?” she turned to Raven, “we’re going to make it so everything is better for you guys, too. We’re not just going to survive. We’re going to thrive.”

“Big words for a couple I found hiding in a container.”

“Oh we would have made it out. Probably not as well off as we are now, but we would have figured out something.”

“To be honest, I was eyeing some of those big trees out there with the spreading limbs. I was thinking I could make a kind of treehouse up there.”

“That’s what some of the tribes do,” Harper said. “That’s not a bad plan. You get away from the standing acid rain on the ground and the fumes don’t get to you. As long as you can keep the rain off your skin, it’s better up there. We have a couple of treehouse watch posts all around the property, just in case.”

“Tribes?” Bellamy didn’t like the way that sounded. There weren’t supposed to be any tribes. And they needed watch posts?

“Yeah, sometimes people lose their stakes and they don’t want to go to town and submit to some other colonist or guild. They just…”

“Go native,” Monty said.

Bellamy wanted to press more, but Clarke was rubbing at her neck. 

“Later,” Raven said. “You need to get into dry clothes. That rash will be no fun. I’ve got something that will fit you Clarke, and I think some of my husband’s stuff will fit you, Bellamy.”

“Your husband? Is he not here yet?”

“He died. Of a fever on the day our trial period was over.”

“I’m sorry.”

She shrugged. “I’m over it. The truth was, he didn’t turn out to be who I thought he was. He betrayed me.” Her eyes went dark, but then she shook herself out of it. “We would have struggled on together or fought through a dissolution. In the end, I lost my husband, but I gained my freedom and I haven’t managed to regret how things turned out. I’ve got my family, Monty and Harper and Emori and Murph. They didn’t start out my family, and we had some losses along the way, but we fought through and we did it together.”

Clarke huffed a laugh. “Things did work out for you, no matter how the charter tried to screw everyone.”

“I got lucky. And it’s still not over yet. I still have to get married. Or find someone to father children with. Because Finn and I never even thought to freeze any of his sperm. He was strong and young. He should have lived. We should have had time. Or maybe I was planning my getaway. I don’t know. However it worked out, I’m not passing the charter. I have a couple of years to figure out my progeny arrangement and then my stake is at risk again.”

Bellamy understood the need for population increase and families in a new colony, but he did not like the way this colony charter was going about it. He was beginning to not like this colony charter at all. He liked these colonists, but he was still up in the air about the actual planet. But I guess they were stuck here now. Heck, was it any worse than the factory station? At least here they had a chance at something real. And at least here he had Clarke. He thought about what would happen if he lost her the way Raven had lost her husband. Or if Clarke lost him? They’d have to find a new spouse. He didn’t like that idea at all. 

When he looked up, Clarke was watching him with the strangest expression on her face. Almost sad. 

He could see the red acid rain burns beginning to raise bumps on her neck. He wanted to reach out to her. “You said we could get out of these wet clothes? I hate to impose, but…”

“Yeah. First things first. We’ll get you dry clothes and then we can all talk about how to deal with this new situation.”

“We haven’t had a new situation in a while,” Harper said. “I kind of like it. It’s been quiet out here, away from the city.” She smiled. Bellamy wouldn’t mind some quiet, if they could manage it.

“I’ll get him set up, Raven,” Monty said, not really smiling, but kind. Why were these people all so nice? “I know where you keep Finn’s stuff.”

“Well it’s collective property, now, so you should.” The bite in her tone made him feel better, more on even ground. They weren’t all nice. Raven was kind of a bitch, and he liked it, but she was a bitch who had come out to save them and welcomed them into her home. 

“Thank you Raven. All of you, Thanks,” he said. Suddenly overwhelmed.

Raven glared at him. “Like I said. You return the favor when needed. No thanks. This is Eden. Come on princess. I have some stuff for you. The HnO3 breaks down pretty soon in the water, but you still don’t want it up against your skin until it does. Bring your med kit. You’re going to need to treat that.”

She limped off down a hallway. Clarke looked at him, chewing on her lip, then turned and followed Raven.

***

Bellamy would have liked to figure out what the plan was that first night, instead, Murphy passed out bowls of his spicy stew and Monty poured everyone a glass of moonshine and they ate and toasted to another year of surviving Eden. 

“We just got here,” he pointed out. And that meant that everyone got poured a new glass of moonshine and this time they toasted to Clarke and Bellamy’s successful landing on Eden.

“We just lost our house and our claim is in danger,” Clarke said. “I wouldn’t call that successful.”

Another round of drinks was poured to celebrate Clarke and Bellamy’s miraculous rescue by Raven Reyes.

When Clarke opened her mouth to dispute that one, Bellamy clapped a hand over it. “Slow down, Clarke. I’m already feeling the moonshine. Don’t give them another thing to toast us for.” 

She laughed and leaned into his side on their bedroll on the floor, in front of a blazing fire that they didn’t really need since the temperature was warm. But Raven insisted.

“It drives the humidity out of the air,” she said, “Plus it’s festive when you’re stuck inside on the first night of the monsoon. It’s a tradition to celebrate monsoon season with food and booze and company and a warm fire.”

“And we get new company!” Harper said, raising her glass high and giving them another excuse to drink. Not that they needed it. 

No plans were made that night. They drank and ate and sang songs and told stories of the people they had lost and left behind. Raven turned out to have the best stories, her wry sense of humor only rivaled by Murphy’s sarcasm. They fed off of each other. 

Bellamy hadn’t laughed so hard in ages. Since before his sister had run off to get married and die here on Eden Colony before he could ever get back to her. The laughter died in his throat. He stared into the fire.

“You okay?” Clarke said, leaning against him, looking up at him with shadows from the firelight dancing in her eyes.

“I kind of wish my sister were here. She would have liked this. She would have liked these people.”

She ran delicate fingers down his neck, still sensitive from the rain, despite treatment. He winced. “These are good people, Bellamy. We got lucky.”

“Again.” He pulled her closer.

Clarke looked down. “We’ll find your sister.”

He shook his head. “We’re not that lucky. She’s dead.”

“You don’t know that. They never found her body. There should have been a body.”

“Maybe she died elsewhere. Or fell off a cliff. Or who knows.”

“Maybe she didn’t die. Maybe she decided to stop playing the charter games and she went native.”

It was true that his sister never liked being told what to do, as he could attest to as big brother, and she had a problem with authority. He could imagine her telling the charter to go screw themselves and going native. That was something she would do. “You’re saying my sister is part of the tribes we have to worry about robbing our claim.” 

She shrugged. “Maybe. Raven says they like throwing the young couples out here on the edge of civilization. Trial by fire. That includes your sister. We should find out where her claim was and see if it’s nearby.”

“You’re a dreamer, Clarke.” He kissed her golden hair. Maybe she was right. He was the luckiest son of a bitch in the universe.

She tucked her nose into his collar. “How do you think I got here?”


	7. Eden Charter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bellamy and Clarke start over again, with help from Raven and her friends. Clarke needs to re-evaluate her whole plan. She needs to think about it all over again and do what needs to be done. It is hard.

Raven Reyes was amazing.

That was what Clarke discovered her first week of the monsoon season.

She was brilliant and beautiful and bold and unstoppable. Not even the nerve damage in her leg kept her back. She slapped on a brace that she constructed out of polymer and grabbed onto some canes and struggled through. And her people took her example. She called them “delinquents” affectionately, although to Clarke they seemed like the hardest working delinquents she’d ever seen, turned to her for guidance, and even when she didn’t really know what to do, they all figured it out together. She said she was just the one with the claim, she didn’t tell them what to do, but they made it work. 

This was a life. It was a good life, Clarke thought. Even though Raven and Bellamy tried to get her to believe how awful the Eden Charter was and how hard life was on Eden, Clarke couldn’t help but believe that this right here…. This was good.

She watched her husband with Raven, and the way she helped him with the plans to get their stake up and running. They had a blueprint drawn up for their eventual compound, along with fields and meadows and a planting and harvesting and market schedule. They seemed to understand each other instinctually, ready to fix things the moment they went wrong and knowing almost instinctively how things would go wrong before they did. 

It was because they were from the same background. Raven was from a Mech Station. That’s how she knew so much about engines and machines. Just like Bellamy was from a factory station and knew about fabricating things and keeping them running. They were complementary, and it was a pleasure to watch him rise to every challenge. Clarke and Bellamy had a plan now. Mostly because of Bellamy and Raven. It was good. She knew it was good.

Clarke was busy with Monty as he showed her the most important technologies for survival on Eden. 

“So you’re saying half of what I brought down is useless.”

He shrugged. “The pods are a nice idea, but you don’t need that stuff. It’s all the most advanced tech you could get when you left, which means it’s nothing we’ve seen here, but so much overkill. You don’t need that. You have greenhouse mods? This is a semi tropical latitude. The growing season is all year long. They might be more useful in the higher and lower latitudes, but not here.”

She sighed in frustration. “We didn’t know where our claim was going to be.”

Monty rolled his eyes. “Of course you didn’t. It’s one of the ways the charter kept you unprepared while seeming to prepare you. Tell you the list of every possible complication on Eden and then not making it specific to the climate or region of your claim, so you can ACTUALLY prepare. So much overkill.”

“I thought for sure that the banks of livestock embryos would be something we needed. I thought it put us ahead of the game.” Monty shook his head. “Not even the genetically modified embryos? They’re specifically designed to be the most nutritious for human consumption and still be compatible with the native conditions.”

“But the Terran genetic modification makes the livestock more susceptible to environmental factors. They can survive, sure, but they’re more delicate. Not as hardy as the Eden stock. There’s not a thing wrong with the native livestock, Clarke. We can eat it just fine. No ill effects. Either we’re not that different or we’ve adapted. A few people come up with some allergies, but there’s some homeopathic remedies with herbs and spores that help.”

“Homeopathic!” Clarke protested. That was nothing but cult nonsense. “This is scientifically—“

“Irrelevant. You don’t need it. With the money you paid for those embryos and the tech to grow them, you can buy completely new livestock for ten years. And you don’t have to raise them from embryos.”

Clarke shut her mouth. “And all this other stuff is useless too?”

“Keep the med pod. That’s good. Excellent. Not only are there no clinics in this region, so people will come to you for care and you can trade your services for their goods and wares, but the med pod can also be adapted for xeno-veterinary purposes.”

“Oh, I have that pod, too. It’s not too different, but I thought if we were going to farm, I thought we should do that, too.”

“But if it’s not different, then why pay for it?”

She gaped. “Because I had the money?”

“But now you need the money and not the pod. It’s overkill.”

“I’m starting to get the feeling that half of what I brought with me is overkill.” 

“That’s good,” he said.

“Good?” 

“You can sell them.”

“I thought they didn’t use money on this colony. I thought it was a barter system.”

“Who told you that?”

“The charter…”

“The charter. Yeah. The same charter that set me and Harper up to fail, and disinherited Murphy when his parent’s died and his siblings fought him for their stake.”

“So he was dissolved?”

“Yup. Right out into the cold. They never liked that he fell in love with Emori, who was born here. She’s got a genetic mutation and she won’t ever be able to have a claim or be legally married. The charter does not accept those of “inferior genetics” on their colony.”

“But she was born here.”

“Yup. Her parents never had a claim in the first place. Don’t know how they lost theirs, but she was pretty much on her own until Murphy found her. He got her contracted on his parents farm and they didn’t mind so much, because she’s a good worker, until he fell in love with her. There was a huge out roar. He got into some trouble with some fire. They almost threw him in jail. Instead, the sibs pressured him off the farm. He lost everything and they were living hand to mouth until Raven contracted them on. The whole thing pissed her off.”

Clarke stared at him. “All of that over a simple syndactyly? It’s a minor mutation.” It wasn’t uncommon for children who were born in space to have genetic defects, as a result of exposure to solar radiation. 

“They don’t care.”

Clarke realized, yet again, that they were all on their own out here on the edge of civilization.

Just her and Bellamy. And maybe these new friends.

**

The first wave of the acid rain storms were passing. Monty had struck up a good predictive model, and he promised to get her set up with the same when they got back to their stake. In the morning, they’d go home. She was nervous.

Bellamy held her in his arms, their last night sleeping on Raven’s floor, their days full of learning what it meant to live down here, getting to know their neighbors, getting lessons on what to do next. “I’m tired,” she said. “I shouldn’t be so tired. No hard labor in the storm. They’ve taken care of us pretty well. Fed us real food, not rations. We have comfortable shelter. But I’m so tired.”

She felt his fingers combing through her hair and it soothed her.

“It’s not surprising. Everything is changing so much. We know so much more now. We’ll be ready this time.”

“Thanks to Raven and everyone else. You think we can do it?”

“Doubts? Where did those come from?” His fingers settled on the back of her neck, kneading the tension there.

“I doubt all the time, Bellamy. I just refuse to let my doubts stop me. I do what I need to do.”

She couldn’t see his face, but she could hear the smile in his voice. “There’s my princess.” He pressed his lips to her temple. She suddenly realized that they hadn’t had sex since they’d left the ship, everything had gone too fast. They’d been too busy. Too tired.

She suddenly wanted to change that. She rolled over to face him. “We’ll be going home tomorrow,” she said, stroking the side of his face with her knuckle. He smiled and leaned into her hand. “I liked being here, but I can’t wait to get back to our claim.”

He raised his eyebrows. “You can’t wait to get back to all the hard work and pulling weeds and trying to get our house up before the next wave of acid rain? You can’t wait to work so hard that you fall into bed too exhausted to move, full of aches and blisters and pains? You can’t wait for that? I thought it was kind of nice to get this break, even though we lost our house.”

“We’re going to have a new house,” she said and flipped her hand over so she could slide it down the corded muscles of his neck to his collarbone, to settle on his chest over his muscles. “And we’ll be alone.”

He let out a huff and grinned. “Oh. You want to be alone do you?”

She nodded. And her hand slid down lower. “We’re alone now.”

He gasped as her hand closed over him. “We’re in the common room of Raven’s house, Clarke. Anyone could come in.”

“Not if we’re quiet,” she said. She slid her hand inside of his pants and his eyes closed. She watched his face, greedily.

He swallowed. “I guess when we get back to the farm, we’ll be too tired and busy to do this.” He licked his lips then bit them. “So we should take the opportunity.”

She was about to agree, when he flipped her over and pressed her into the bedroll, kissing her until he was all she could think of. She’d realized that not only did she miss their claim, but she’d missed this, she’d missed him. She realized how even though Eden did not turn out to be the eden she thought it would be, what she found here, with him, was a paradise, and she’d do anything to keep it. 

***

They got to their claim after the sun had broken the horizon, the whole team of delinquents piled into the rover. They were pulling Raven’s fabricator, too, because the plan was to get their house and mech barn up as soon as possible, start to get the mods up and running, and then use the breaks between storm bands to put up the fencing and prepare the fields. Then they could charter a shuttle back to Arbor Town with their mods and supplies that they didn’t need, to sell them or trade them or barter them for things they would need, like live stock or seeds. They piled out of the rover and got to work. 

Raven and Bellamy set up the fabricator with the plans for their newly designed cabin, much smaller than the one they had originally planned, at least to start with. Their stake-home. She liked the way Bellamy and Raven worked together, communicating easily but with humor, already settling into jokes and ribbing. A kind of relationship Clarke had never really been able to achieve. With anyone. She was always too serious. Something everyone but Lexa had chided her for. Lexa didn’t because she was just as serious. Of course, that didn’t work out well at all, both of them so serious all the time. It made everything always seem a life or death issue even when it wasn’t. Here she was in situations that might actually be life or death and it all seemed so much less melodramatic. Clarke liked Bellamy’s lighter personality, even though he could get so angry and intense sometimes, he was also willing to joke or tease. She wondered if he liked the easy banter, if he felt she was too serious. 

“Hey, Clarke. Eden to Clarke. Hello.” 

Clarke blinked and turned back to Monty. 

“Sorry. I got distracted.”

“Right. So, the predictor models for the storms.”

She shook her head and paid better attention to what Monty was doing on her tablet. While Harper and Emori went through her mod list to see what they should set up for the claim and what they should haul back to Arbor Town to sell. 

That night, as the sun was going down in a vivid red and purple sunset, Bellamy and Clarke said goodbye to their friends and returned to their little camp in the container box. Bellamy kindled a fire and they enjoyed the brisk, clear night while they could, before the storms came back. They had three and a half more days, according to Monty’s predictions, and the cabin as well as a simple barn structure, thanks to Raven’s fabricator, were already being cured. 

Bellamy talked about plans while he ate the reheated stew that Murphy had packed for them. “So while the house and barn are curing, I’m going to be working on collecting that rubble to be reconstituted into more fabricating compound, since our first house washed it all away. Great plan, princess,” he grinned at her. His mood was so light. And she had almost doomed them. 

“You know, I looked up parameters of marriage in the Eden charter again.”

He looked at her sharply. “Why? Planning on our dissolution.”

She rolled her eyes. “I just wanted to check on something. With all these things we’ve been finding out about how shady the charter is.”

“So much…”

“I was wondering if other things would risk the claim. But no. The marriage parameters are not concerned at all with that old-fashioned idea of one man with one wife.”

“Well good. That would be regressive. Do we give them points for not being 100% from the dark ages?”

She couldn’t let him take her off track. This was hard enough as it was. “Raven helped us out a lot. Maybe even saved us. And she’s in a jam, in a way that we can help her with.”

“True,” Bellamy nodded slowly, stirring at his bowl of stew. “I think when you get your medical pod set up, you should definitely approach her about treating her leg. You can do it, right? I mean, that’s what you were trying to tell her that first day, wasn’t it.” He took a bite. 

She sighed. He wasn’t going to make it easy on her. “Yes. You’re right and I will. But that’s not what I was getting at.” She turned to face him. Best to just spit it out. “Bellamy, I think we should ask Raven to marry us.”

Bellamy choked. “What? You mean like officiate? We’re already married. You want some sort of ceremony?”

“No, Bellamy, she should marry US. You and me and her. Married. Her claim’s boundaries butt up against ours. We could join them, and run them both as a triad. I told you, the charter is not traditional about marriage. Polyamory is accepted. They prefer multiple females so that there can be more babies, but—“

“Always with the babies,” Bellamy muttered. He was now staring out into the darkness. 

“Because it’s better for settling the planet. We all have acceptable genetics. She needs to get married… or find a man to impregnate her. We can help.”

She ran out of things to say. So she thought she should stop talking. She picked up her bowl and spoon and started eating her stew. She hadn’t been able to eat before. But now she’d gotten it out, she was hungry. And she needed to do something while waiting for him to respond. He didn’t. Not for a long time.

“Would this be—would this be a business arrangement for you, Clarke?”

It had been silent for so long his words startled her. “A what?”

“A business arrangement. Like I was. Something you did for your claim. Because you thought you had to.”

Hearing him call himself a business arrangement hurt something inside of her. She swallowed around the knot in her throat. “She saved our lives. We owe her.”

“Clarke, that’s not how you repay a neighbor’s help.”

“You like her.” The words came out fast. Like a confession. Or maybe an accusation. She cleared her throat. “You like her. I can see that. You get along great. You don’t fight with her the way you fight with me. You laugh with her. You work well together. You don’t call her princess.”

His mouth fell open. 

“I’m not giving you up.” That was more than a confession. Almost a threat. “But I understand that you tied yourself to me before you knew who I was, before you knew what that meant. And here Raven is, riding in to save us.” She shrugged and laughed. “Beautiful and smart and brave. She’s so beautiful. Who wouldn’t want that? I don’t blame you for wanting her.”

His face had no expression. “Do you want her, Clarke. Are you saying you want a wife?”

She shrugged and laughed. “For you I would. For you to be happy.” She shrugged and laughed again. “If I met her at a bar back on Polis Station or Alpha? I’d probably hit on her. She’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.” She shrugged and laughed again and realized she was possibly getting a little hysterical. “Are you saying you wouldn’t?”

He raised his eyebrows and looked away. 

“See. I knew it. I knew you liked her. You work well with her and I want you to be happy.”

He screwed up his face. “You want me to be happy. And you think the way to do it is to get me married to another woman.”

“Us married. The both of us would be involved. I’m not letting go of you. This is not something you have to be worried about, okay. There will be no dissolution…oh… unless you want to let me go and move to her. Okay. Okay. Okay. Sure. I can do that. I will if you want to…it was a business arrangement, like you said and if you found someone you like better.” She couldn’t look at him. She felt tears rising. She felt stupid. She was stupid.

“No.” There was a laugh in his voice. 

She let her hair fall in front of her face to hide it and peeked up through the curtain. “What do you mean no.”

“No to all of it. I don’t want Raven. I don’t want another wife. I don’t want YOU to have a wife. She’s great, but I’ll keep her as a friend and neighbor. I think we can have a great partnership, the three of us, and the rest of them, but that’s not a marriage. This is a marriage.”

“What’s the difference, Bellamy? It’s a partnership for property and childrearing. And I saw how happy you were with Raven.”

“I’m happy because of you Clarke. You make me happy. I’ve been delirious with happiness since I met you.”

“Lies. You wanted to kill me when you met me.”

“No, I wanted to kill all the snobs on that ship. I wanted to kill all of society. I wanted to fuck you.”

Clarke felt the heat rise to her cheeks. It was silly. They were already sleeping together. They were married. There was no reason to blush. “Lucky you, that’s part of what marriage to me means. But you could, if you wanted, have her too.”

“Aren’t you listening?” he snapped. “I don’t want her. I want you. As my wife. As my only wife. Yes she’s beautiful, but you’re the one who reminds me of this Eden sunrise. You’re the one with those blue eyes. That mole above your lip. That grin whenever you think you have something to impress me with. I don’t want Raven. I don’t want to hook up with other girls. Or marry them. I don’t need any of that. And it drives me nuts that in the few weeks we’ve been together, you’ve tried to sell me off to other women at least twice.”

She gasped and now tears did come to her eyes. “Not sell. Never sell. Give you options. Because I took away your options.” She was crying. 

He slid over and pulled her into his lap, and she cried on his shoulder until she was all cried out. Surprisingly, it didn’t last long. Not once she was surrounded by him and he was petting her hair and she could smell his warm spiciness as her nose tucked into his neck. She pulled back. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay, Clarke,” he said and looked at her with his warm dark eyes. “I think I’ve figured out the problem you’re having.” He chewed his lip. “The difference between our marriage and a partnership with our neighbor, who is great, is that…”

He didn’t finish. “What? What is it?” Her heart was beating fast and she didn’t know why.

He brushed her hair back from her face. “Clarke. The difference is that I’m in love with you. I know it started out just business, and I know we haven’t known each other that long, but I’m committed. To you. No one else. I’m not interested in a poly relationship. Just you. Sorry. I told you on the ship. No sharing.”

The sky felt lighter. She put her arms around his shoulders. He loved her. “Actually, what you said was no cheating. A poly relationship is not cheating.”

“Clarke,” he warned. 

“Okay. Good rules. I will amend our agreement. No sharing. Just you and me.”

“You gonna write it out for me to sign? Can you add a part about not pimping me out to other people?”

She dropped he head to his shoulder. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I did it.”

“I do.”

“Why?”

“You got jealous.”

Clarke sat straight up. “Jealous! I would never! That is so archaic. A relationship is between people who want to be in a relationship, there’s no need to be jealous if someone doesn’t want to be in the relationship. You let them go and find someone who does.”

“Ahh. So that’s why you wanted to invite a stranger in. If I liked her, then she should join us, rather than me choosing her?” he grinned at her, teasing.

“No.”

He took her chin between his thumb and forefinger and turned her face to his. “I wouldn’t. I would choose you, okay. You didn’t take away my choice. There is no other choice, because I love you.”

“Oh,” she said. Then he kissed her and she lost her breath… but she wasn’t using it anyway.

She hung on to him, still in his lap, and after the kiss was over and they were watching the fire burn and the new stars shine, she whispered in his ear, like it was a secret, and if the words were spoken out loud they might break, “I’m falling in love with you, too.”

She felt him take a deep breath, hold it, and then let it out. “That’s good to know,” he murmured against her hair. And he pulled her closer.

Off in the woods, some small creature set up a song that filled the night with wonder.


	8. Grounders

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bellamy and Clarke prepare their stake for the coming storm. They are ready.

The delinquents came back the day before the monsoon was scheduled to hit them. 

“To make sure you weren’t going to need to be rescued again,” Raven teased. 

“We’re good,” Bellamy said, and pulled Clarke to him, kissing her far more deeply than he ever would have on Raven’s claim before Clarke had decided the answer everything was polyamory. Polyamory. He couldn’t believe she’d thought he wanted Raven and not her. Even Raven AND her. He couldn’t believe she didn’t realize how crazy he was for her. Clarke was a little dazed when he pulled back and Raven had already turned away to check on the durability of the cabin and barn.

“You don’t need to prove it to me, Bellamy,” Clarke said softly.

“Maybe I want to.” He’d never felt this way about anyone before and he was lucky enough that he was married to her. He ran his thumb over her lower lip and her breath stuttered. He was kind of looking forward to proving to her that he loved her. For real. Not for business. Not because he had to.

“Bellamy…” she said and pulled back, but not far. “We have work to do.” But she had a smile on her face while they were testing how the curing was going on the house and barn. And every time he caught her eye as they were shifting the mods they were going to keep from the container into the barn. He smiled back at her. Yep. He’d prove it to her. 

***

After evaluating the modules Clarke had bought, they’d gotten rid of a good 60 percent of them. They weren’t looking to make a luxurious life out here in the woods, although Diana Sydney had apparently thought she would be living in pre-fall American opulence. She had entertainment mods and gymnasium mods and even a mod for a spa. But on top of that, she also had some things he liked. A textile factory mod, for one. Clarke thought they wouldn’t be growing cotton, which was too delicate for the climate, like the mod had originally been planned for, but after talking with Emori, he learned that the vines that covered their farm, while not nutritious, were actually fibrous and strong, and made an excellent cloth. Not soft, but durable and resistant to the acid rain to boot. Clarke was surprised, but he was excited. It brought him back to his factory station roots. He might have worked in polymer sprockets, but his mom had worked in the synthetic fabric mill. He knew this. His skills would work here. They could develop a fabric to sell on the market. He knew it.

“Everything is synthetic, back on the other side of the universe. If we can develop a workable organic fabric, it will be worth something.”

“You want to sell a product over a forty year time jump? No. Make that eighty years, Bellamy. The time it takes the product to get to market and the time the payment takes to get back.”

“We just have to get an exporter to buy it. We don’t have to sell it ourselves.”

Emori broke in. “I might know some ships captains who are always looking for some sort of exotic native Eden luxury products to sell to the suckers on the other side of the universe. You make it pretty and they’ll buy it.”

“See?” Bellamy turned to Clarke, a glimmer in his eyes. “We don’t have to just survive out here. We can thrive.”

“It’s a risk, Bellamy,” Clarke said with a grin at his excitement.

“How is it a risk? We keep a module you already bought, and use the weeds we can’t get to stop growing on our property.”

“Fine,” she’d said and they’d added the factory mod to their storage in the barn. He thought it was a fine irony, that he traveled all this way across the universe only to end back up in a factory. Of course this time he owned the factory. He grinned and set to work.

They worked until darkness fell. Setting up the cabin for living, storing the modules. Raven handed them each a laser pistol and warned them to be careful of the grounders, who might come after them, thinking the new colonists might be easy targets. Bellamy took the gun, and got ready to argue with Clarke, who he was sure would not be on board with firearms. But Clarke fooled him.

She took Raven’s gun and checked the charge immediately. “We’ll give these back to you when we get our own. The charter certainly never said we’d need weapons.” She met Bellamy’s eyes with one cocked eyebrow. He nodded and they both fastened the holsters onto their hips. 

Murphy made them a stew over their fireplace and gave them strict instructions on how to cook over the open fire. Bellamy promised him they’d figure it out and soon would have a kitchen set up. Then they left.

They were gone. The delinquents who were no delinquents, who complained and snarked and mocked, but got the farm sealed up tight for the coming storm. They even helped Bellamy and Clarke set up fencing, made with honest to goodness wood and synthetic cording, fastened tight. Because they were going need a fence when the storms were gone and they bought their livestock.

Their small claim was storm tight. The house and barn cured and hard and snug and locked. Their cabin was stocked with whatever they might need for the duration of the next wave of monsoon. The drainage and retention pond were clear. They were as ready as they could be.

And now Bellamy and Clarke were alone, in their home, in their real bed, set up in the corner of their tiny cabin, nothing at all as fancy as the state room they’d spent their first month together in. Nothing at all like the privileged life she came from. Nothing at all like his own life, far from privileged, but secure and relatively safe. He’d never considered himself privileged, but now that there was nothing but this house and the neighbors across the way between them and actual death? When Clarke left the small adjoining washroom and climbed into bed with him, he pulled her close, right into his chest and wrapped his arms around her.

She smiled and nuzzled into him and was silent a long time.

“You okay, Clarke?” It was rare for her to stay silent that long. The air felt weighted. Maybe it was the coming monsoon, but he thought instead it was something on her mind. ”You have something you want to talk about?”

She sighed and leaned up on her elbow so she could look at him. “Your sister, Bellamy. You didn’t tell me about her until we got here. You never told me that was why you signed on to the agency in the first place.”

His sister. Ahh, yes. He knew she wanted to ask him about that when he first brought it up. He was surprised she had waited so long. “No. I didn’t tell you. At first I didn’t know you, and then…”

She cocked her head. “Then what, Bellamy?” She drew shapes on his chest with a gentle finger, nervous. 

He smiled at her. Everything she did made him smile. “Then I kind of got swept away in you and didn’t want anything to spoil the moment.”

“Oh.” She bit her lip. The shapes continued on his chest. He covered her hand with his, stilling it.

“My sister ran off a long time ago, Clarke. She was always such a fighter, no one could ever tell her what to do or keep her down. We always fought. I thought I’d lost her. She fell in love and we fought some more and she ran off with him. Or maybe we fought and then she fell in love. It gets confused sometimes. But she left when she believed I was trying to destroy her life, and I had to let her go. I had to let her try for something better than what she could get on our factory station. Right? I had to let her go to take the chance at a better life? But it was like she died. It ended badly and I knew I’d never see her again.”

“Bellamy…” Clarke crooned, and laid her head against his heart.

“Then I thought I could get her back.” His voice came out in a whisper. “I didn’t want to hope because things like that don’t happen. But I thought there could be a chance. We could be living on the same planet. Maybe. But we got here and they said she’d died, so…” he stopped talking. “So what’s the point of talking about it? She’s been dead for me for four years. It’s better to keep her dead, right?”

“Oh Bellamy, honey,” Clarke said and she was so kind, stroking his face, kissing his lips, it almost made him want to cry, she was so good, and it hurt, like a toothache. She began kneading his neck with her surprisingly strong fingers, the muscles so tied into knots that he winced. “Oh, honey,” she said. “Roll over, let me give you a massage.” 

It was better than talking right now, so he did. She climbed up behind him and worked through the painful muscles and he was so tired and worn he let her. He was floating in a haze of good feelings, nearly on the edge of sleep, when she spoke again. “I think Octavia is alive, Bellamy.”

“What?” He rolled over to face her, suddenly awake again. She shifted and came back down straddling his hips. 

“I think she’s alive. I don’t trust the charter.”

“You shouldn’t,” he said, his voice hoarse.

“I know. I listen to you and Raven. They aren’t trustworthy and their story about her claim being lost and never finding any bodies? I don’t buy it. I think it’s just another story they tell to steal the land back. There would be some documentation if she was really dead, I think.”

“People die all the time without a trace. It’s the wilderness.” He didn’t want to believe.

She shook her head. “You said she was a fighter. That no one could keep her down. I don’t think she just disappeared. I think she’s out there, gone native with those grounders.”

He laughed in disbelief. “You’re a dreamer, Clarke.” He laughed in disbelief. “And you know those grounders are the ones we’re armed against.” He looked at the bedside table, where they each had a gun sitting. “That would mean we would be fighting against my sister.”

“We’re fighters, too. Nobody gets to take from us, do they?”

He shook his head slowly, not really believing that this was his wife, his life. He ran his hands up her thighs to settle on her hips and clutched at her.

“Not tired, Bellamy?” She smiled at him with a glint in her eye. “It’s been a long day. We might want to consider keeping that spa mod. A hot tub sounds nice right now. A good soak would do us good.”

He laughed. “Oh, I’m exhausted. But I don’t need a mod. I just can’t believe I have you. Have all this.”

She leaned over him and tangled her fingers in his hair, brushing through the knots. “All this? A one room cabin on the edge of humanity, with a storm barreling down upon us as we speak? The complete uncertainty of what will happen tomorrow or the next week?”

“Yes,” he said. “All of that. It’s terrifying. And wonderful.”

“I married an adrenaline junkie,” she said, her lips curling up. He couldn’t resist. He surged up and flipped her over, pressing her into their soft bed. She laughed delightedly.

“Not too tired, baby?” he asked, his hands already roving under her clothes.

“Oh yeah, definitely too tired.” And she pulled him down on top of her, hooking her leg around his hips, so he couldn’t get away. He didn’t want to. 

***

Afterwards, Clarke fell into an exhausted sleep, but Bellamy was still awake, still getting used to the new environment. Still charged. The rain started up again. The monsoon was back. It made a music on the roof that awed him. It was almost hypnotic. He reached over, careful not to disturb his sleeping wife in his arms, and retrieved the tablet from the bedside. He looked at the satellite images. There was the leading edge of the storm, just hitting their peninsula. The bands of rain were much bigger than the last system. Like Monty had predicted, this would last much longer than the week they endured last wave. He stared at the images for a while then put the tablet down.

He settled back into the pillows, and Clarke wriggled into him. He sighed in contentment. Maybe they didn’t know what would happen in a few weeks, but right now it was good. They were safe and together and prepared. Could they hope for anything else but that? He felt ready to face fate.

The rain played its song on the roof and Clarke’s soft body pressed up against his, warm and lush. He liked her skin so much. He liked her strength and her will and her intelligence too. He liked her attitude, but right now, she was nothing but calm and innocence. The lion inside of her sleeping and at rest. He could stare at her all night, he thought.

He was going to take this moment to be happy that his life had turned out like this, no matter what he’d lost and what he’d given up, he’d gained more. Happy. What an astounding thought. 

He heard a sound above the rain on the roof and his whole body went tense. The sound came again. One more second and he was scrambling out of bed, pulling on his pants and reaching for his gun.

Clarke was up too. “What is it! What?”

“I heard a noise,” he said. There it came again. It was mechanical. “Go back to bed, I’ll check it out.”

“The hell I will,” she growled, and pulled on her pants and his tshirt. 

He stuffed his feet into his boots and checked his ammunition. 

The sound came again. Machine. 

“It’s the grounders,” she said. “They’re trying to steal our shit.”

“The hell they will,” his words echoed hers. They pulled on the slickers that Raven had left them, rain hats and jackets made out of the native vine fibers which were immune to the acid in the rain. Their guns held tight, they stepped out into the night.

The night of Eden was much darker than anything he had ever experienced. Everything on a ship or station was accompanied but mechanical buzz and minute activity lights. But a night like this, with the stars covered over by thick clouds and the relentless rain. It was dark. Stygian. The rain pounded down with a loud hum. Louder than he’d expect.

He heard the whir of the machines again in the darkness. “It’s by the container. They’re trying to break into our container.”

Without a word, he caught her nod in the near complete blackness, the light in her eyes caught by the sparks from the grounders’ machine. They slunk over to the container. Bellamy pushed her toward the fence. He wanted her to take cover behind the fencepost. It wouldn’t be much but they couldn’t reach the woods from here and he wanted something she could hide behind. He crouched down beside her, in the vines that grew high, and he fired a shot, without warning, towards where the machine whirred.

The light from the laser lit up the field for the slightest moment. He saw three people clustered around the door of their container. One yelped.

“You missed your chance!” Clarke yelled from beside him. “We know about you now. Too late. You should have raided us after the first monsoon wave.”

“Fuck!” someone shouted.

Bellamy shot again. He aimed for the place he’d just seen the cluster of grounders, but they were already scattering into the dark rain. He took aim on their fleeing shadows.

Clarke shot also. She hit a tree and a limb came crashing down. Their engine roared to life and headlights flashed on. Bellamy fired again, but they took a route through the trees and all it did was bring down another limb.

The grounders disappeared, their rover charging through the brush, leaving the storm in its wake. 

Bellamy could only hear his own harsh breathing over the sound of the deluge. 

“Fuck, Bellamy, that was too easy.”

“Only easy because they didn’t expect us to fight back.”

“Do you think they’ll come back?”

“Maybe, but not tonight.”

He heard Clarke’s harsh sigh of frustration. She grabbed his arm. “C’mon Bellamy, let’s get back inside. Tomorrow we’ll set those deterrent charges that Raven gave us. We should have done it before.”

“There was no sign that they’d been around.”

“Still,” she said. “You and Raven were right. This place isn’t an eden. We have to fight for everything. And I’m going to.”

“To think I thought you were a princess.” The adrenaline made him laugh. 

“I never felt like a princess,” she said, “but I’m beginning to realize how easy I had it.” She hissed in pain.

“What’s the matter, baby?” Bellamy said, all of a sudden worried not about the grounders but about her?

“My hand. I touched your slicker, and the acid rain must be strong. It’s starting to sting.” 

He growled under his breath. “Inside.” He made sure not to touch her jacket with his bare skin but ushered her back towards their cabin. “We’ll treat that so it doesn’t burn, and then we’ll set a watch. They won’t take us by surprise.”

Inside their cabin, she let him treat her hands, and then pushed him back on the bed, devouring him with kisses and riding him until his eyes rolled back in his head. “Who’s an adrenaline junkie?” he laughed, a languor coming over his limbs as he trailed sleepy kisses along her collarbone.

“Shut up,” she said. “I’m taking watch. I’m too keyed up to sleep, and you need to get some rest. Okay?”

“Mmmm,” he said, happy and terrified and satisfied and excited and so tired. “Wake me up in a couple hours and I’ll take watch.”

“I will.”

“Good,” he murmured, feeling sleep pull at him. “I love this place. And I love you.”

She said something back that made him feel warm, but he couldn’t recall, as sleep took him.


	9. Arbor Town

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The monsoon season is done and Bellamy and Clarke head into Arbor Town with Raven and her crew. Selling their useless mods and buying things they would need. They didn't know they were going to need this.

“Arbor town, is like none other…. ARBOR TOWN,” Clarke sang, as she secured the mods they would be selling in Arbor Town in the container. She was excited about seeing the town again. She’d been too nervous to sight-see when they’d first arrived on Eden Colony, but now they’d get to walk around and shop. That was their purpose. To shop. And sell. But it was exciting. The song was her variation on a popular song from Polis Station, but with Arbor Town substituted for the the galactic pop star it was already about.

“Clarke, please stop singing that. I love you, and your voice is like an angel—“

She snorted. Her singing voice was horrible. Lexa used to mock her for even trying to sing. 

“—But your taste in music is AWFUL. I hate that song.”

Clarke gasped. “You hate it? It was galactic top twenty for a full standard year, Bellamy. It’s the best!”

“Oh my god, Clarke.” He tightened the strap on his mod and then came up behind her, wrapping both of his strong arms around her middle and pulling her back into him, so she could feel his whole muscled torso and thighs pressing into her. A thrill went through her. “How can you possibly enjoy that predigested pap that they feed you on the galactic music charts. You know that it’s just noises the galactic counsel has decided will calm and soothe space travelers, right? It’s to pacify the masses.” 

His muscles were rock hard. She loved them. It had been a wonderful monsoon season. Once they had figured out how to not die. She turned in his arms. “Maybe I’m okay with being a pacified masses.” She kissed his neck.

“No. Not allowed. I am going to school you in real music.”

“Oh dear stars and seti. Not ‘real’ music. Are you one of those? How have we spent six weeks isolated in a storm wracked cabin and not had this discovery?”

He nuzzled her neck, murmuring, “probably because we spent all our time fucking.”

She poked him in his side and laughed. “So what’s real music? Some archaic whining of reeds and wind instruments? No. Let me guess, it’s got strings and percussion. Something from old earth, I bet. You’re that much of a weirdo. Hmmm. Baroque? No. Wait. Jazz. No. Rock.You’re a rebel. I bet rock music.”

“Shut up,” he grumbled. “Rock music developed from Blues which came from Jazz.” 

She smiled. “That’s it. American 20th century music. Of course. You weirdo. My husband is too cool for current music.” She wrapped her own arms around his waist and pulled him close. Closer. She bit his jaw.

He growled and kissed her. She laughed at the onslaught. Welcoming his kiss.

A horn blared, long and loud.

Clarke and Bellamy stepped apart.

“Aren’t you done with your honeymoon yet??” Raven mocked them from her rover.

Bellamy ducked his head, embarrassed. Clarke grinned back at her. “Nope.”

“Well pack up those heart eyes and take them on the road. Our ride will be here any minute.”

“We’re ready to go,” Bellamy said, his voice deeper again and all business. “We were just checking the straps on the cargo.”

Clarke followed him out of the container. Now that it was only half full, they had to secure the cargo more closely to make sure shifting while in transit didn’t damage any of the mods. Damaged mods weren’t worth as much. And they were going to market to get as much out of them as she could. She wasn’t sure how much of a demand for the luxury mods that Diana Sydney had sold her, but Raven seemed certain that they would sell.

Together, they closed the container and locked it. Bellamy pounded it three times. “We’re set,” he said and turned to Raven. “You?”

Raven pointed to the trailer the rover was pulling. “We’re ready to get it onto the landing pad. You know, we’ve been using that landing pad since we got here, since the farm was untended? Your air space is much clearer and it’s just easier than building our own.”

Clarke nodded. “And you can continue using it. Whenever you want. This world is the kind of place where you need your neighbors. And your friends.”

Raven tilted her head and looked at Clarke, evaluating. She nodded slowly. “Yeah. We’re friends. And neighbors.”

“Lies, Reyes,” Murphy said from behind the wheel. “You’ve adopted them like you adopted us. We’re all family now. I’m hauling this trailer over to the landing pad then we’ll haul the container. It’s better if we’re set up already by the time Miller gets here. Market opens early.”

Raven looked at him sourly, but Clarke stayed silent until she turned back. “And we’ll talk about your surgery when we get back, right?”

Raven turned her sour look on Clarke. “I’m fine.”

“You’re in pain and I can help ease pain and increase mobility. We’re neighbors. And friends.” And family, she felt it but she wasn’t going to push. “Life is better if we help each other, and I want to help you like you helped us, okay? I owe you.”

Raven grumbled but didn’t say no, so Clarke let it go until later. The shuttle landed and they met Raven’s pilot who they’d hired together to get to Arbor town. Raven had crops to sell, and Clarke and Bellamy had all their pods. It was a community effort.

***

Arbor Town was full of trees, like it’s name, mostly the tall, nearly blue trees with gray iron-like wood. Or, it was close enough to earth wood to be considered so. The houses were built around them, in them and in some cases, through them. Real built, not fabricated. They were made of the iron wood and nails and depending on the wealth of the owner, were decorated to varying degrees with spires and gingerbread and statuary, going up three stories high. Money and status were so clearly an issue on Eden she felt foolish for believing it was some idyllic world without wealth or poverty. The richer the owners were, the fancier their houses.

And yet, the streets showed the distinct presence of the poor. The dispossessed. There were lines of people willing to be hired. Day laborers, Raven had told her. And camps out side of the town proper, where those without contracts or claims pitched tents. Hoping.

“You were right, Bellamy,” she said, hanging off his arm while the crowds she had become unaccustomed to, jostled around them. “Money is just as important here as you said it would be. I was naive.”

He looked at her and smiled with his heart in his eyes. He brushed her hair back. “You were idealistic. It doesn’t mean you were wrong for wanting something better.”

“But that’s not the real world.”

“But it could maybe be our world,” he said. Then he laughed, still high on the prices they’d received and the trades they’d made. They had a whole head of the native cattle being driven to their property, and they had considered contracting on some workers to help them out with the farm.“Besides, you made bank on those mods. That Diana Sydney sure knew the luxury market. Those stuffy colonists were dying to get a hold of them. I’ve never seen a bidding war go up so high as for that spa module.”

“Because it’s useless. No one who had the slightest clue of what was needed here would have brought it.”

He cleared his throat.

“I don’t count. I just bought her whole container and added what I thought I would need. I was completely uncritical. And naive.”

“It’s proof that you can afford something completely useless and entirely luxurious. That you’ve succeeded on Eden. Maybe you were too busy in your medical research to pay much attention to politics and human desires. People always want to show off and declare themselves superior to others, even with something as silly as those luxury mods.” 

She shook her head at the nonsense. She didn’t really understand these people although she knew she came from the same privileged background as they had. She’d always focused on service to humanity rather than status. Her mother was proud of that and she’d ignored all the ones who called her boring or a drag. Maybe she was. But maybe she’d just needed a new planet. Eden. And a new life, with Bellamy.

Raven came up. “You guys ready to go check out those used rovers for sale?”

“You sure?” Bellamy asked. He was clearly nervous about spending their new found wealth. But what were they going to do with it? Hoard it? When they needed things for their new life? 

“Yes. I can fix it up for you and then you’ll be mobile and not have to depend on us or on calling a transport to carry your goods to market.”

“Go Bellamy,” Clarke urged him. He gave her a suspicious look and she colored, remembering how she’d been trying to set him up with Raven. She pulled him close to kiss him. That wasn’t what was happening. “I just want to try and find out what happened to my mom. If she had a good life. There’s that new tesseract technology where they can send information across space time, no matter the distance. I can’t do any close research, but she’s important enough that they might have some news about her, or at least about Alpha Station.”

His mouth twisted to the side. “You want me to come with you?” 

She shook her head. She knew she would likely hear of her mom’s death. 40 years would have passed for her. “No. I’ll be okay. You take care of the rover for us. Meet back here.”

Clarke used a handful of precious credits to read through the archives of the last forty years. Lexa had been deposed on Polis Station after being accused of conspiracies and plots that led to the destruction of multiple stations in the quadrant. They’d exiled Lexa to a space mining station out in a distant asteroid belt and the entire region had been destabilized, leading to the dissolution of the coalition of stations that had kept the region stable, including Alpha Station, where Clarke’s mother had been Chancellor. 

Clarke sat, reading the tablet. Alpha Station had been destroyed in the upheaval and brutal coup, only a year after Clarke had left, and her mother had not been among the survivors that had been rescued.

Her mother was dead. Not after a long and well lived life, but after a short and brutal war that had actually had nothing to do with her or their family. Clarke could not believe that her girlfriend, the woman she had considered marrying had been the cause of so much harm. 

Clarke only realized that she’d been staring mindlessly at the screen when her time ran out on the tablet and it clicked dark, spouting a recorded message about requiring more credits for more time. Clarke pushed back front he chair and stalked outside.

She hadn’t liked the politics of the Coalition Quadrant. She’d thought they’d be limited to Alpha and she’d escaped when she moved to Polis, but she’d actually fallen right into bed with them. Clarke bought a drink from a cart on the corner. It was made with native juice and spiked with something they called moonshine. It was delicious and the day was warm and beautiful, with pink puffy clouds and blue-green trees everywhere, but Clarke was lost in her head, lost forty years ago in a story of a woman she once loved, and her mother who was now lost. Lost twice.

She didn’t feel like she had a right to grieve. Maybe that was why she was just angry and spoiling for a fight. She left the information center and went out into the beautiful day. She couldn’t enjoy any of it. She wasn’t even sure if she saw any of it.

When she heard the shouting in the middle of the street, she tossed away the disposable drink container and pushed through the crowd to find a young girl, maybe 12 years old, being held by the back of her worn sweater, a large bald man with tattoos shaking her just a bit if she tried to pull away.

Her eyes were bright green and her hair was long and tangled and brown and she glared at the man as if she would take a bite out of him if she could get close enough. He shook her again.

“Give her back, now.” An older woman with a haggard look sneered.

“She was caught stealing from me. I’m the one who gets to sell her.”

Sell her? The buzzing crowd faded away and she just saw the girl.

“She isn’t yours to sell, she’s’ mine. I bought her discount for my farm, and I want her back.”

“Well then you shoulda kept an eye on her and not let her wander around breaking into my garage and trying to steal my rover. So now I get to sell her. The bidding is at 6 bar-credits!”

“Six credits! She’s a minor. And a trouble maker. She ain’t worth that.”

The bald man looked the girl up and down. “She’s what? Two years from childbearing age? Not a citizen. No parent. No contract. The bidding starts at six creds.”

Clarke pushed through. “No.” She shoved at the man, his attention on the other woman, and he was so surprised that he stumbled back. Clarke grabbed the girl and pushed her behind her. “You can’t have her.”

“HA! See. Crazy lady says. Give her back. Your stupid rover isn’t even stolen. I can see it right there.”

“You don’t get her either.” Clarke growled. She pulled her laser pistol out of her holster and pointed it at the woman. “She’s mine.”

Raven had told her to go armed, not to use the weapon, just to show Arborites that she wasn’t to be taken for granted. Well she was going to show them.

“No. She’s mine. I bought her to work my soybeans. She’s young and strong. And I need a hand out in the fields.”

“Well I’m her mother now. I’m adopting her.” The girl stared up at her in shock. Clarke let go and pulled her papers out of her cargo pocket. “Citizen. I have a claim and I need a family and this girl is it.”

“You can’t do that.” The big man took a threatening step forward. 

Suddenly Bellamy was there at her side. “Back off. How much did you pay for her? Discount you said? We’ll buy her back.”

The woman was looking back and forth between all of them. Clarke could see her calculating in her head, wondering how much she could get away with saying.”

“Five bar-creds.”

“Liar.” Raven was there. “You just said you got her discount. She’s a trouble maker. Those are the ones they put on discount, to get them out of the city. Two tops.”

“You don’t know me, girl.”

“But I do, don’t I, Nygel.” Murphy was with Raven.

“John Murphy. You still alive?”

“Damn right I am. And I know how you work. You’re taking her out to the flats, gonna work her hard and feed her little until she dies or runs off, and then you’ll be back for another delinquent when you use her up.”

“You have no proof.”

“What’s this I hear about working contract workers to death?” Suddenly there was a guard there, armored in plated mail, with a visor over his face. “This is a punishable offense. One is a fine. If we find a history of abuse you can lose your stake.”

Nygel flared her nostrils. “Lies. Did that freak tell you this?”

Clarke realized that Emori was standing behind the guard, her arms crossed over her chest as she glared at Nygel.

“She’s not even a citizen. Neither is he. They have no say.”

“But I am.” Raven stepped up to Nygel. Angry. “And they work on my farm. And I support them. If I want to charge you with abuse of your workers, it’s within my right.” Raven held up her id for the guard to see. “Citizen.”

“We want to adopt her.” Clarke brought the girl with her, her hand tight around the girl’s wrist. She wasn’t going to let them take her. She felt Bellamy close behind her. “We’re new colonists. We have a claim.”

The guard looked the girl up and down. “If she’s been bought by this citizen she’s not free for adoption.”

“If this citizen claims this girl,” Raven said, “I’m pressing charges for worker abuse. My contractors are the witnesses.”

Nygel glared at them all. “She’s not mine!” she spat out and then turned on a heel and pushed through the crowd to disappear.

There was a moment where the crowd stood, frozen, waiting for the next drama. The big bald man with the tattoos took a deep breath as if he was considering a claim on the girl. Clarke knew that sale hadn’t been legal. “You still want to put a claim on her for stealing your rover? The rover that is right there behind you? Also, guardsman? Is it legal to sell minors as breeding stock.”

“What’s this now?” The guard swung his visor to the bald man. “It certainly is not. It’s quite clear in the charters that minors are in no way to be sold for mating. Of any sort. Immediate loss of claim.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he grumbled and climbed into his rover. The engine started. The crowd dissipated. 

The guard flicked open his visor and peered at Clarke and Bellamy. “You’re going to adopt this random delinquent and make her your heir?”

“That’s what we said.” Bellamy crossed his arms.

“How do I know you’re not going to try and sell the kid into slavery yourself? You think I don’t know what goes on in these frontier towns? Out on the far claims? Show me your papers. All you colonists are the same. I don’t trust any of you. ”

“Because adoption is legally binding.” Bellamy added. He squeezed her shoulder. He was with her even though she had just decided in a split second. “I read the charter, too.”

“Do you even know this kid’s name?”

Clarke knew the guard was suspicious, and it actually made her relieved. At least he cared. She’d been beginning to think nobody on this colony cared about the way the vulnerable were treated. She sighed. “I don’t, guardsman. I just couldn’t let her be taken like that.” Clarke turned towards the girl, letting go of her wrist for the first time since this all happened. Her voice softened. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry for all of this. My name is Clarke, this is my husband Bellamy. We live out on the Arkadian Plateau. What’s your name?”

The girl looked at her, then Bellamy, suspicion writ plainly on her face. Then she eyed the guard. “Madi,” she said. Shortly.

“That’s it? Just Madi? No last name?” The guard asked. “You a runaway or something?”

“Not a runaway. My parents died. Been returned to the center three times. Just Madi.”

“Returned three times!” the guard looked shocked. “You don’t want to adopt this girl. She’s a delinquent.”

“We like delinquents!” Clarke stepped in front of Madi, afraid somehow that he’d take her away from them. She was already attached. 

“Wait,” Bellamy said, taking Clarke’s arm and pulling her away for a minute. 

“Bellamy…” Clarke got ready to fight him. She wanted this kid, she didn’t know why but she did. She knew it was foolish and she didn’t care.

He held up a hand to her and turned to Madi. “Do you want be adopted by us? We didn’t ask you and that’s not right. My wife wants to save the world sometimes and she jumped in. If you don’t want to go, we don’t have to adopt you.”

“You’d go back to the center.” The guard said. “I won’t send you back to that citizen, not if she has a reputation of working her hires to death.”

Madi peered at him, then at Bellamy, then at her. 

“They’re new, but they’re okay,” Murphy said. 

Emori nodded. “They’ll take care of you, and if they don’t, we’re next farm over, and you come to us, we’ll take care of you.”

Madi knew the way the things worked on Eden. She took in Murphy’s and Emori’s words and she looked immediately to Raven, the citizen.

Raven nodded. “We’ll vouch for them and if they turn bad, we’ll take you.”

Madi shook her head. “Why?”

“Because someone helped me out, so I help other people out, and then when they have a chance, they help someone else out. It’s a way of paying back.”

Madi nodded solemnly as if it made sense. As if it was a good world view.

“No. We help out because we’re family,” Clarke said. She wanted Raven to believe her. Madi too.

“But she’s got to decide if she wants to be family, Madi, is that what you want?” Bellamy addressed her again. She loved her husband. She loved that he was the one who remembered that Madi should have a say in her own life. 

“I get to choose?”

The guard shrugged. “Minor first-class gets a say, in signing a contract or dissolving but an adoption contract, but you can’t dissolve an adoption as a minor unless you have a different guardian lined up, or you get emancipated.”

“First class? I’m not first class.”

“Pubescent child is a minor first-class. You get a say.” The guard looked away, as if this whole incident was way more involved than he wanted it to be.

“So I could dissolve it if I don’t like it. If they take me.” She jerked a thumb over at Raven and Emori and Murphy.

He nodded. 

“So I could put it in my contract that they are my guardians in case this goes bad?”

“Adoption contract isn’t the same as contracting onto a stake you don’t get to—“ the guard started.

“Yes, she can put it into her contract,” Clarke inserted.

“I’ll sign the contract. Call me Aunt Raven.”

Madi jerked back. “So I guess that makes you two mom and dad?”

“How about you just call us Clarke and Bellamy.”


	10. A Good Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bellamy and Clarke settle into their claim with their new daughter Madi.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took so long. Life got busy. And I ran out of plot. So I'm giving you bits and pieces until the plot comes back.

It was hard.

Building a life out of mud and vines and the wide open sky was hard. But it was good. Bellamy couldn’t believe it was as good as it was. As a guy from the bottom of the heap on a factory station, he knew what it was like to work hard, but this idea that he got to work on what he wanted, when he wanted, according to what he thought was important… this was new. He took to it well, with a vengeance. 

A few weeks later, and Bellamy and Clarke had a home. The fabricators had finished the original house design, adjusted for what they had learned and their new life, and put up the outbuildings they needed to get started on their goals. The delinquents had gone home and Madi had her own room. 

He almost hated to admit how much he liked the house Clarke had designed for them, after it had nearly led to disaster, but he did. They’d turned the original cabin into a kitchen and gathering room and it was almost his favorite place to be in the world. But he also loved the bedroom suite, and work rooms, a study set up for work and lessons for the girl. They’d created an office off of the house, and installed the medical mods, so that Clarke could take patients and do her research. 

They had even created a wing of bedrooms. Nominally, it was for guests right now, and with the delinquents stopping buy whenever, they were used, but he and Clarke both knew that eventually, those rooms would be for the children they had. Madi was only the first resident. 

“I know pregnancy kind of freaked you out, Clarke, but you didn’t have to adopt a surprise orphan to get you out of it,” he’d teased her when they were in bed together, Madi asleep in her new room, settling into her life here on their claim.

Clarke looked up, surprised. “I didn’t—“ He smiled and brushed her hair back and she shook her head ruefully. “Honestly, that wasn’t the plan. I just couldn’t bear to see her being sold like that. Used like that.”

“You didn’t see me arguing, did you? I would have done the same thing.”

“You would have?”

“I have a reputation for being a softie.”

Clarke laughed low and deep in her throat in a way that made him want kiss her deeply. “Oh, you’re the kindest person, Bell. Of that I have no doubt. But I thought you would be wiser than me. I spent all my life being taken care of, and I didn’t know. Now here we are, and there’s nothing protecting me from the people who have been preying on everyone else all this time. I’m not prepared. I was lucky to marry you. All I’ve got is my idealism.”

“And me,” he said, his heart swelling in his chest. “You have me to protect you. I’ll stand with you, Clarke. I always will.”

A tear came to her eye. “You’re just saying that because you’re in love with me. You don’t see all my faults.”

“Oh I see them. I love you anyway. Sometimes because of them. Believe in me, Clarke. You did the right thing with Madi. I probably would have started a fight and might not have thought about going through legal channels. I would have shot someone, and they’d be dead and we’d all be in jail and our claim would be lost, so I could use some of your idealism, okay?”

Then she was kissing him, as if she’d never let him go. When they broke apart to breathe, Clarke laughed again, but this time it was a nervous laugh. “But Bellamy, now we have a family. We adopted Madi. I’m her mom. What did I do? I don’t know how to be a mom. I don’t know how to raise a child. Worse. A teenager. Look what me and my optimism has gotten us.” She gripped his arms.

“Don’t worry. I’ve got some experience with kids. My mom worked a lot, even before she got sick, and I took care of my baby sister. I’ve dealt with my fair share of teen angst. Preteen angst, which, believe it or not, is worse. Madi’s not a teenager yet. We still have the onslaught of puberty to deal with.”

“Oh no.”

“Yeah.” He thought of Madi, of her suspicion and reticence, even as she settled into her new room and her life here, she kept them at a distance. She was an orphan and had been through life as all but a slave. She was a smart girl, he knew, and she’d been through some tough times. She wasn’t ready to open up. “Besides, even though we adopted Madi, you’re not her mom yet. Don’t worry. You get to work up to it. Right now, we’re just people taking care of her. But we’ll all settle in, get to know each other. I have a good feeling about it all. She’ll come around.”

“I don’t think she believes this was a real adoption. She’s been working as if she was a contractor all this time. As if she was a slave.”

He thought about Madi’s wary eyes. How she worked on the farm and field and house and mods until Clarke or Bellamy made her come in and rest. And the way she hid away until the next work day. And then worked again as if that was her sole purpose in life. 

It was hard work, but it wasn’t preindustrial times. That’s what the mods were for. Mechanics and mills and machines that eased the hard work of settling a wild planet. They had time to rest, they had leisure time. They’d stocked their pantry until the vegetables and fruits and grains came in, enough to feed them all with enough to trade or sell, hopefully. As long as they managed them right. 

Bellamy and Madi had spent that morning in the textile mill, experimenting with the fibers from the vines, and he could see her brain working, although she never said anything but ‘yes, sir,’ or ‘no, sir.’ 

“She doesn’t think this place is hers.” He said. “She doesn’t think we are hers.”

Clarke shook her head. “What do we do? How do we convince her?” 

“Slowly.”

***

The next morning he started. Instead of silently working on the textile prototypes in the factory they’d fabricated, more like a workshop, really, he began telling a story, an old earth tale, of Ariadne, the spinner. 

“I guess you’re supposed to be Theseus, not The Minotaur,” Madi said, drily.

Bellamy was shocked that she’d let the sarcastic comment slip, it was the first bit of personality she’d let show. He pretended like it wasn’t anything, despite the leap his heart took. “Oh, I was kind of thinking you were Theseus, and I was helping you get away from the Minotaur with my thread.” He smiled a half smile at her and held up the hank of rough fibers.

She snorted. “So that means I abandon you when I get out of the maze. And that makes Clarke Dionysus.”

Bellamy laughed in surprise. “I’m telling her you said that.”

She rolled her eyes, like a regular kid. “It’s a horrible story.”

He fed the fibers through the textile mill and fiddled with the settings one last time. “Tell you what, Madi, starting tomorrow, how about we start the day off learning better stories. We’ve got a huge bank of literature, mythology and anything else you might like to study.”

She gave him a look. “But then who is going to run the textile mill in the morning?”

I’ll set it to process while you are eating breakfast and starting your day, and then come in and teach you.”

She shook her head. “But—that’s not productive.”

“I’m not asking you to be productive. You need to have your schooling. I don’t like to brag,” she snorted again. He grinned. “But I’m an expert in history, and have a decent background in literature. Clarke is dying to take you through the sciences, and we talked to Raven and Monty. They want to get you started on a curriculum of math and computer science. To start. Eventually, if you’re interested, you can follow into, oh, anything. Engineering, medicine—“

“Fighting.”

“Fighting? You want to learn how to fight.”

Her eyes were level as she looked at him. “I want a gun.”

“You’re twelve.”

“We don’t get to stop fighting because we’re young. I want to be able to protect myself.”

“I’ll protect you. Clarke will protect you.” Bellamy had the feeling that this was a test. “We’re making a place where you can be safe.”

She continued staring at him. She wasn’t safe. None of them were safe. They all had to fight to get here, and to stay here. He knew that. He’d been fighting all his life within the strangling rules of his home station. Here there were few rules. And what rules there were, were meant to protect the government, not the people, and could be used easily against them. At any moment. He didn’t trust the charter. She didn’t either, and her lack of trust was not just philosophical.

“I’ll give you a gun. Close range. Low charge. And I’ll teach you how to use it. You don’t use it, ever, unless it’s practice shooting or an emergency.”

Madi lifted her head in victory, a light coming to her eyes that he didn’t remember seeing before.

“But you have to take the other lessons too. Literature, History. Math. Science.”

She scoffed. “If I’m doing all these lessons then there won’t be any time to work on the farm.”

Bellamy cocked his head. “You don’t have to work on the farm. We’re happy to have you, and we’ll definitely give you chores, “ chores were good for responsibility and taught a kid to live in their world, “but that’s not why you’re here. Your job is to learn and grow, and be a kid.”

Madi shook her head, as if disagreeing. 

He shrugged. “Sorry, kid. Those are the rules. School. Being a kid. Chores. And then you get your fighting lessons. Is there anything else you want to ask of us?”

She narrowed her eyes. “Vids. I want access to all the entertainment vids.”

“The ones that are appropriate for your age. Sure. No problem. And time to watch and play them. Deal.”

She swallowed in shock. “And candy.” The word came out high pitched. “As much as I want.”

He laughed. He felt a light inside of him. She wanted candy. Like a kid. “Nope. I can’t agree to that one.”

Her face closed down.

“But I will agree to a measured amount of candy. Along with a balanced diet. We’ll order some from town and have it delivered with the next shipment. But that won’t be for some time, so we’ll have to add another lesson.”

“Another lesson!” It was a complaint. He grinned. Now that was a kid.

He nodded. “Cooking. And Clarke is getting lessons in that, too, because she always had someone else to cook her food and we all need to learn new things and figure out the best way to survive and prosper on Eden. I’ve been cooking since I was your age. I’ll take point on that one. And teach both you and Clarke self defense. Plus, I know a great recipe for fudge. And cookies. Maybe you’ll accept those in lieu of the candy until it gets here.”

“You want to make me candy?”

“Yes. And I want to teach you to make your own candy. And cookies. What movies do you want to see? We should start that tonight.”

She was shocked, but he managed to get her into a discussion about some movies he’d loved when he was a kid and she agreed to watch his favorite with him, that night, after dinner.

It was a date. It was a beginning.

They settled back in to work, trying out the new program for the textile mill and marveling together at the fine weave they managed to process in small batches. They decided that this was the program they’d use in the morning, to see if they could process it in larger bolts.

Suddenly, she spoke up. “You’re doing the garden wrong.”

He didn’t look at her. “Are we?”

“Yeah,” she said, like she was pissed off. “You’ve got all those fancy earthy vegetables because they cost a lot in the marketplace, but they don’t grow well out here. They fail and require constant fertilizer treatments and debugging which messes up the ground for later, and the man-hours weeding out the native plants so they get enough nutrients from the soil and don’t get choked out? Nah.”

“No good? Even though they pay more in the market?” He repeated her words, to see if that would get her to add more.

“Nah. First, you gotta get the red toms. You plant those with the earth potatoes, sure, they’ll grow together.”

“Red toms?”

“Eden veg. Kinda like an earth tomato, but heavier and sturdier. Almost meaty. And inter plant it with the greens that you keep trying to get out of the field. Nah. They’re edible, and crowd out the weeds that choke the potatoes. And then you gotta leave the field altogether and go to the woods.”

“Go to the woods?”

“The bosses, they didn’t like to waste their market produce on us workers, so they told us to go forage. Well they’re too stupid and didn’t realize that we weren’t foraging, we were cultivating the woods. Shade plants, you see? Berries and seeds and nuts and this gourd thing we called bready fruit. It wasn’t bread, but you slice it up and it’s kind of spongy and you can use it as bread and it soaks up the sauce and soup and stuff and it’s actually really good. I missed it in the city. They don’t sell it there because they think of it as a junk plant. Stupid. Don’t grow the grains at all. Too much processing to be edible. Bready fruit is better.” She looked up at him then, and clapped a hand over her mouth. As if she just realized how much she’d been saying. How critical she was of the bosses and Eden charter.

Bellamy simply nodded. “You know a lot. How about you give us some lessons, too. We take some afternoons and go check out the woods and see if we can find some of that bready fruit and whatever else is out there. And we’ll look into changing our crop.”

She got red in the face. “I want a day off, too. Day off of school. And work. To do nothing.”

“You get two.”

She blinked and shook herself. 

“Madi,” he said slowly and turned to her, looking at her face on for the first time since their discussion started. “You’re not a worker. You’re family. And you’re not responsible for the functioning of the farm. We are. You’re responsible for growing up. You get to have a childhood. We’re going to give that to you.”

She stared. Then looked away and went back to work as if he’d said nothing.

He’d let her make peace with it on her own time.


	11. Things Are Good

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke can hardly believe that everything is going well.

Murphy waved from the tractor mod as he tilled the near field. Clarke waved back and shouldered her diagnostic kit. She’d had to come to Raven, who claimed she was too busy to have a doctor’s appointment, but now Clarke was 98% sure that with the new technology she’d brought with her, she’d be able to fix most of Raven’s muscular damage and 75% of her nerve damage. She’d never be like new, but with the appropriate assistive devices, she would be mobile again and the pain would be much more manageable. 

She watched Raven try not to be optimistic when she laid out her plans, but by the time she was leaving, she’d already gotten started on sketching out a new brace and had called in Monty to consult about the computer interfaces. 

Raven didn’t even have the focus to say goodbye, already hard at work, but Emori hugged her before she left. “Thank you, Clarke. She won’t admit how much her leg bothered her, but I watched her suffer. She’s always got to be a badass and won’t let anyone help her. I love her and don’t want to see her in pain anymore.”

Clarke nodded, both of them holding back tears. “Don’t thank me until we do the surgery. Make sure she takes it easy and work with her on those exercises after it’s done.”

“Already planned. We were listening. Harper’s taking point on the physical therapy. She’s already got an exercise routine in mind.”

“I think this is going to work,” Clarke said, her spirit lightening. They were going to do this. Life was going well. She got into the rover and went through the woods, the well travelled road now clearer than ever, due to the cooperation between their farms. Because they were friends. A community. 

The sun was starting to go down when she reached their farm, and a warm light was glowing from the kitchen. Clarke made sure to head to her medical lab first, so she could input all Raven’s information into her computer and run the tests to get more precise predictions for her surgery and recovery. She sighed happily. The numbers were even better than she’d hoped. 

She shut down the lab and finally allowed herself to go to Bellamy, to Madi, to her family.

She heard them in the kitchen. She didn’t know what they were doing, exactly, but they were laughing. She was quiet as she went to the door and peeked in. Her breath caught in awe. It was so beautiful.

They stood at the counter, next to each other, the electric lights set to an ambient bright, softening the edges of the mess they were making. The bowls spread out, produce in piles nearby, used spoons and baking pans half full. Bellamy elbowed Madi and pointed at whatever they were working on and she threw back her head and laughed.

She laughed. 

Clarke’s heart stopped. It didn’t make sense that she could have fallen in love with this girl so soon, that she already wanted what was best for her, wanted her to be happy. She already felt like her mother even if Madi didn’t feel like she was their child. But here she was, with Bellamy, happy.

She let out an unbelieving laugh.

They turned. Madi looked guilty, like she’d been caught doing something naughty, but Bellamy’s eyes glowed with satisfaction. 

“We’re making fudge,” Bellamy said, pretending that Madi wasn’t suddenly nervously brushing her hands off on her apron beside him. Clarke would take his lead and ignore that.

“Fudge for dinner? That can’t be healthy, Bellamy.” Her voice was soft and fond. She wasn’t even going to try to hide her feelings right now, she was too hopeful. 

He grinned and shot a look at Madi, who grinned back and shook her head. 

“Told you,” he said to Madi, then to Clarke, “No way. You know me better than that. We’ve already got a stew cooking. It’s Madi’s recipe. Using Eden produce. I meant to give her a cooking lesson, and instead, she’s been teaching me about the way the native Edenites eat.”

“Oh really?” Clarke raised her brow. “How fascinating. What a good idea. I can’t wait to try the Eden cuisine.”

“Cuisine?” Madi snorted. “It’s just what we eat after working.”

“It’s the native cuisine and I don’t know it, so it’s great.”

“That’s what I thought,” Bellamy said. “It’s really starting to smell good. I can’t wait. So I decided we’d do some sweets, both as a reward and as part of our agreement.”

“Agreement?”

He nodded, his eyes alight with success as he told her about their afternoon. Madi adding clarifications about her instructions on farming, firmly, almost like a scold and Bellamy’s smile settling deeper every time she did. 

“That’s amazing, Madi. Do you mind if I come along on that foraging trip to the woods? I’d really like to pick your brain about the native flora and fauna. I want to make a reference file on our biological resources around here and keep an eye out for some of the plants that have medical uses.” Madi agreed with a stern look on her face. She was taking her responsibility as their guide seriously. “We should also take this opportunity to start on your science lessons.”

Madi’s jaw dropped. “But I thought I was the one teaching you.”

“You are. And we’ll take that opportunity as an exchange of information. Double duty. Half the time.” 

Madi checked with Bellamy.

He nodded. “Sounds like a good deal. In fact, if you take Clarke on that forage trip, I can work on the textile prototypes while you two check out the plants. I have to be honest. I know more about production than plants. So that’s a good way to use our talents, right? “

Madi rolled her eyes. “I guess.”

***

 

The woods were much more intimidating when she was inside them. The light dim and filtered by the thick canopy, strange animals peeping and chirping and crashing around. The brush and thick foliage hiding everything from view.

When Clarke jumped for the fifth time, at a scuffle in the woods, Madi laughed.

“You don’t have to worry about the animals out here, Clarke, There’s nothing bigger than the cattle. Any predator is going to be going after the small things, mouselings and gidgets and and the flutterbyes.”

“Nothing preys on the eden cattle?” 

“They’re not native to this continent. The main continent has some bigger predators. I’m glad I never had to work there. I herd tales, I tell ya.”

“Tales of them attacking colonists?”

“No, workers. The workers don’t get to live behind the high walls. They add the death toll caused by the screechers and stalkers to how many can be expected to die from regular work. It’s a lot.”

Clarke stopped. “Are you kidding me?” They just accepted death by predation among the workers, as if, because they weren’t citizens with their own claims, they weren’t human.

“‘Course not,” Madi said, not even realizing that Clarke was fuming over the injustice of it. To her, it was the normal state of existence. It made Clarke even madder that Madi didn’t understand that it was a human rights violation. Just wrong. 

“Oh look. Bready fruit!” Madi turned away from her and crashed through the underbrush towards a hummock covered with lumpy yellow things. “This is a great mound. It means it will keep growing back here. I knew someone who dug up a mound once, to figure out where they came from, and there’s this whole thing underground, like tubes and hollow roots and stuff. Bready fruit pops up on the surface and you can harvest it and eat it, raw or cooked. Both. It’s softer cooked, a little spongier raw.” She popped off a yellow dome and peeled off the hard outer rind, then broke off a piece, handing it to Clarke. Clarke took it suspiciously. “Eat it,” she encouraged and then popped a bit into her mouth.

Clarke followed her lead, a bit uncertain. It squeaked against her teeth but was soft and reminded her of something. “Yeasty.” She said. Then laughed. It was rather tasty, actually. “I think it might be some sort of fungus.”

“Ew,” Madi said. “No it’s not. It’s delicious. And healthy. The bosses don’t realize how it fills us up and gives us energy. If they did, they’d take it away and sell it at market and we’d be back to boiled roots.”

Clarke stopped. “We’ll then, I don’t want to sell it in market either. I don’t want to take away the sustenance of the workers. It’s not fair.”

“Why do you care what’s fair? Life isn’t fair. You work and you try to get good food and you sleep and wake up and work again. What’s fair about that.”

Clarke let out an exasperated breath. “That’s not how society is supposed to work. We’re supposed to support each other so that we can thrive and learn new things and advance technology and become better as human beings, not just use people as slaves, use them up as if they weren’t humans also. Don’t you realize you’re just as important as any stupid citizen who had the credits to buy a claim and ticket out to Eden?”

Madi looked at her like she was crazy. “Okay, Clarke. Look, we can collect the bready fruit, but you always leave ten percent behind.” She started to pluck the fruit, and Clarke let her. It was process. She would understand, eventually. She turned to the hover cart they’d brought with them. It wasn’t that big, but it was enough to bring back a decent load of forage. Not just the bready fruit but also some berries and nuts that Madi had showed her. “That’s the rule. Right now they’re great for harvest, because the rind protects them in storage and travel. You can eat them when they’re smaller, but they don’t have the rind, and you’ve got to eat them right away so they don’t go bad once you pluck them. But if you wait too much longer, they dry out inside. You can still smoke ‘em and I’ve had some good stew with smoked bready fruit, but they’re kinda dry fresh. And if you wait even longer… well they go hollow and puff out this cloud of pollen or something. You can get itchy and sneezy if you get caught in a cloud of bready fruit pollen. So like, stay out of the woods in the pollen season. It’s no fun.”

“I’ll take the advice and be on the lookout,” Clarke said and steered the hover cart onto the mound so that they could both harvest. Clarke was on her knees examining some of the bready fruit when she realized Madi was right next to her. Close.

“Your hair is so pretty,” she said, softly. 

Clarke looked up. Madi’s face was wistful. Her hand moved as if she wanted to touch it, but she dropped it and scowled.

Clarke grinned. “I’ll tell you the truth. I enhance it. It’s blonde naturally, but I use dye to make it brighter. I like the color, but I bet yours is softer. The dye makes it dry and coarse. I should probably stop dying it.”

Madi made a disbelieving face. “It looks like candy fluff.”

“Go ahead and touch it. You’ll see. I can tell your hair is in better condition. And the color is lovely. Rich brown with red undertones.”

Madi put her hand out tentatively and touched Clarke’s hair. Her brows drew down in confusion. 

“Go ahead, try and get your fingers through it. It tangles really easily.”

Madi dug her fingers into Clarke’s hair as if she would comb through it. Of course, she got stuck. Clarke laughed and helped disentangle her.

She reached out and touched just the tip of Madi’s braid. Her hair was always braided. “Is it curly?”

Madi nodded. “Not too curly, but a little.”

“I love curly hair. It’s so pretty. Do you want me to brush it out someday?”

Madi shrugged. She felt sure she was about to say something.

“Hate to break up this touching moment, but we’ll take that hover cart you’ve got there.”

They were surrounded. Grounders in tattered clothes and worn leathers. They pointed guns.

Clarke gasped and reached out to pull Madi to safety. Too late.

“Don’t touch her!” Madi shouted, stepping in front of Clarke and holding her arms out as if she could ward off lasers and bullets. “She’s mine. You can’t have her. I earned her. She’s my mother now and I’m not going back to the plateau farms.”

The man who spoke laughed. He was big. He didn’t even need a gun to scare Clarke. Clarke grabbed Madi and hauled her back behind her. “Don’t Madi. Don’t risk yourself.”

“Listen to your mother, Madi. We’ll take your tech and your produce and if you’re good, maybe we’ll let you live. Since you’ve made it so difficult for us to take our tribute tithe.”

“Tribute tithe? What are you talking about? We don’t owe any sort of tithe. We pay taxes to the charter.”

“Do you see any charter officials around here? Are they helping you survive? No I don’t think so. So you and I should be talking about tribute tithes, then, hmm? How about you agree to give us fifty percent of your harvest and we agree not to kill you.”

“I’d like to see you try,” Madi said, shoving her way past Clarke again. “Bellamy is trained in the guard. Raven’s got our claim wired to blow. We have guns. I’M getting a gun, and the hell we’re going to let you come in and take everything we worked for. Screw you.”

“Madi,” Clarke ground out through gritted teeth. “Be quiet, we can work with these people.” It was the opening offer. She knew it was. This was a negotiation.

“Did you say Bellamy?” One of the smaller armed grounders pushed her way to the front. She pulled her hood back. She was a beautiful girl with delicate features and fierce green eyes, maybe mid twenties, but it was hard to tell. Colonist life aged people. “Bellamy Blake?”

Clarke narrowed her eyes. “Bellamy Blake-Griffin. He’s my husband.”

The woman stood straight and turned on the man. “Did you somehow miss that this was The Blake Claim?”

“It isn’t. It is The Griffin Claim.”

“I paid for it.” Clarke had managed to pull Madi back into her with one arm wrapped around her shoulders. “They don’t seem willing to change the paperwork until the year probation passes.”

“That’s because they want to take it away from you, and one name is easier to ditch than two. Take me to him.”

Clarke laughed. She shouldn’t, she knew it would provoke someone, but she couldn’t help it. As if she would bring these robbers onto the claim and put Bellamy in danger. Madi was already hotheaded enough. “Why would I take you to my husband. You can kill me, but you can’t have him.”

“No they can’t kill you!”Madi said, turning on Clarke. “I already told them. You’re mine.” She spun around on them. “I know you grounders. You don’t take from natives. You don’t take from us workers. I claim Clarke and Bellamy. They’re my parents. They adopted me. They’re mine and so is their claim. The farm is a grounder farm.”

The woman sheathed her weapon and gestured to the rest of them to do the same. “You’re damn right it’s a grounder farm. I’m Octavia Blake. Bellamy is my brother. He’s one of us. Your farm is safe.”


	12. Back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bellamy reunites with Octavia.

“Bellamy!”

Bellamy was busy in the mill, just waiting for the latest test run of the machines. He was so close. He thought this one was it. He’d managed a very fine weave of the vine fibers after soaking them in a distillation of a certain root found near by. It softened the fibers up enough that they were no longer stiff and the first test he’d tried was so close.

He didn’t want to stop what he was doing to find out whatever Madi was excited about. Just a minute. 

The fabric was coming out, slowly as the machine wove. It was pale, and thin. Almost sheer. Delicate. A far cry from the tough stiff weave they’d made on the first go. He was excited. Yeah, he wasn’t a guy who was an expert in luxury goods, but he understood production and commerce. This was soft. If it had the slightest bit of strength that the original fibers presented, they might be onto something.

“Bellamy!” she called again.

“I’m busy, Madi!” he yelled back. It was a test run. It should be done soon and he could remove the weave and test it. The durability was the key. 

He went over to the machine and let the fabric run through his fingers. So soft. It made him smile. 

“Bellamy! Come out here!” Her voice was impatient. That was good. She was beginning to feel comfortable enough to demand things from them. He wasn’t, however, going to let her walk all over him.

“You’ll have to learn some patience if you want to live with us, Madi. Calm yourself down.”

The fabric was soft. So soft. It came out in his hands with the weft finished off. This was a sample. A bolt would be yards of this fine, soft weave. He tugged it with both hands, crushed it. It sprung back just as soft and fine, but not delicate at all. He laughed. They’d done it. 

“Nice.” Said a voice he didn’t think he’d ever hear again. “But washed out. I have a dye like a shimmering bird’s wing. Mom would have loved it. You should try that.” 

He turned around slowly and the fabric slipped out of his hand to pool on the factory floor.

“Octavia?”

There she was. His sister, standing in front of him, smiling. Her hair was long and dark and she was dressed in leather with her face painted in outlandish makeup, but her smile was so broad and beamed at him.

“Octavia? You’re alive.”

She shrugged one shoulder. “Sorry?”

And then he swept her up into his arms. His baby sister. Who he’d thought he lost. She wrapped her own arms around him and tightened them with surprising strength. 

God. She was alive. She was strong. She was beautiful. She was fierce. He could hardly believe it. He didn’t know how long he held her but after a while he pulled back.

Clarke was there with Madi, in the doorway watching but standing distant. She smiled, too, with tears in her eyes. 

“But how?” he asked. And then a thought. “Where’s Lincoln?”

A darkness came over Octavia’s face. She shook her head. ‘He didn’t make it. It was his claim. The charter took it from me. Cast me out. I left and took off into the wilderness rather than submit to becoming someone’s contract or moving to comfort town. They had no right. So I’ve done my best to screw over the charter since then.”

Bellamy looked at her in her leathers and war paint. With her hair in elaborate braids and a tattoo creeping up her neck. 

“You’re a grounder.”

She nodded. 

“How did you…” he thought about what she must have gone through, after she had lost Lincoln, who he knew she loved more than anything. Who she’d given up her whole life for, to follow him to this planet that had killed him. “I’m so sorry, O.”

He saw the tears come to her eyes and she fell into his arms again. His sister. Hurting. All this time. And he hadn’t been here.

He let her cry herself out on his shoulder and he patted her hair. So silky. “I wish I could have been here for you. I tried to get back to you. And you had to do it alone.”

She wiped her face and shook her head. “I’m not alone anymore. I have a people. The grounders. They’re my people. And I… met someone.”

She sounded reticent. Like she was sure he was going disapprove, the way he’d disapproved of Lincoln. Thought he was too old. Thought he’d carry her off, which he did. But she loved him with all her heart and Bellamy knew he’d made her happy.

“If he makes you happy and is good to you that’s all I care about.”

“She. Niylah. And she’s good, yeah. She keeps me centered. I’d introduce you, but she didn’t come with us. She’s not much for hunting.”

He looked up suddenly. “Hunting? How did you get here.”

Clarke was standing in the doorway, with Madi clinging to her side, as if she wouldn’t let her go. As if she didn’t trust her to disappear if she did. 

“We found her,” Clarke said.

Bellamy laughed. “You found her?”

“She found us.”

“She was going to steal all our stuff and kill Clarke!” Madi said, angry.

“We were not!” Octavia glared at Madi.

“You were hunting us! If you hadn’t figured out it was Bellamy’s claim too you would have taken everything.”

“Madi—“ Clarke started, her voice scolding. “It was negotiation. I knew what I was doing. You have to trust me a little.”

“Trust you on Eden? No way. Only Bellamy gets the way they do things down here. You’re the princess.”

“I am not! Bellamy! Did you tell her I was a princess?”

Bellamy laughed. He was too happy. “I did not.”

“We weren’t going to kill her anyway.” Octavia turned towards them. “You’ve got yourself a little spitfire for a kid there, Bellamy.”

“Yeah, well, she’s not the first is she.” He reached out to hug his sister again because he couldn’t let go. “I can’t believe you’re here. I can’t believe you’re alive. They told me you were dead.”

She snorted. “I can’t believe YOU’RE here! You crossed the galaxy for me.”

He shrugged. “Worth it.” He shot a glance at Clarke, who was biting her lip, her eyes shining.

Octavia nodded. “So this is my new sister, huh?”

“Be nice to her.”

“As nice as you were to Lincoln.”

“No. Much nicer. I learned my lesson.” He went over to Clarke and kissed her temple, he couldn’t help it. “I was wrong.”

Octavia pointed her chin up. “Yeah you were. But I’m better than you, and I won’t take it out on her. Welcome to the family, Clarke.”

***

The day of Bellamy’s visit to Octavia’s camp, Clarke couldn’t come. She’d gotten Raven to agree to the laproscopic surgery on her injured nerves. Raven was still so iffy on it that she was afraid if she waited, she’d back out. And Octavia’ grounder camp was a now or never proposition, because wasn’t their real home, but they set it up on their “scouting” missions, and they were leaving soon. Bellamy could read between the lines. Scouting meant raids. They raided colonists and claims. They were the people that Clarke and Bellamy had been warned about. 

Madi had been totally suspicious but Clarke wanted to believe in them, believe that they were part of the good in the universe. Bellamy just wanted to believe in his sister, and so Clarke and Madi were picked up in Raven’s rover head out to her place, and Bellamy took their rover to the meeting place.

He was driving back on a narrow path through the trees, heading back to their claim. It was a good meeting. Not only did he get to spend time with his sister and see what kind of life she was living… not that secure but he was proud of how fierce and free she was. Clarke and he had decided that they could give the grounders some of their resources, and medical checkups for the first time, for some of them, and in return, the grounders would trade them knowledge and training on survival skills. It was just the beginning, but Bellamy thought their chances of surviving this new planet, with or without the help of the charter had just gone up. They had allies. 

The claim was silent when he pulled in the gate. He supposed Clarke hadn’t gotten back yet. He parked the rover and led the animals from the field into the barn and made sure everything was tight. He went to the house to cook up some of the game that he’d gotten from his sister, satisfied.

He finished cooking and the sun had gone down. Still no Clarke and Madi. They should be back by now. What if something had happened with Raven’s surgery?

He clicked on his com system. They didn’t have complete access to the satellites, something that his cynical brain said was just another way for the charter to control them and make it harder to survive.

“Hey, Bellamy,” Monty picked up the com. “How did everything go? Clarke and Madi told us about your sister. We’re so happy for you.”

“It was amazing, actually. Can I talk to Clarke or is she still busy with Raven? Did everything go okay?’

“Clarke? Murphy dropped her off hours ago. Everything is great. Raven is already awake and complaining from her bed as we wait on her hand and foot which she HATES. It’s hysterical. But Clarke said she’s not allowed out of bed.”

Bellamy didn’t hear much else. “She’s not here.”

There was silence on the other end. “What do you mean she’s not there. She has to be. 

“Neither Madi nor Clarke are home. It’s quiet here.”

“Maybe she and Madi went foraging.”

“It’s dark. She wouldn’t have gone into the woods in the dark without me here. She would’t have, she knew I was coming home.” Bellamy was worried now. “I gotta go.”

“Yeah. Uh. We’ll keep an eye out for her here. I’ll get the word out. Maybe someone from a nearby farm came by to get her for a medical emergency. I’ll radio them and see.”

He took a deep breath. “Thanks. Please. Talk to you later.” He hung up and raked his fingers through his hair, looking around the room. “Fuck. Where did you go Clarke? That’s it. We’re getting everybody short range radios.” They hadn’t because they figured one of them would be with the rover and the radio attached to that. That had clearly been a stupid plan. Each person should have a portable. 

He went out and called for her at every outbuilding, but he knew she wasn’t there. She would have come out sooner or later. The panic built in him until he was standing in the middle of the compound, yelling. “Clarke! Where are you?! Madi! Clarke!”

“Shut up!” he heard from the woods. His heart leapt and he ran towards the sound.

“Madi? What happened?”

He went over the fence and into the shadows of the trees. Madi grabbed his sleeve and pulled him deeper into the woods. “They took her, Bellamy. They took her.”

“What?” He shook his head, confused. “Who took her.”

Madi’s face was pale and her jaw was tense. She shook her head. “I don’t know. They were in a charter transport. But they didn’t look like charter officials. They looked like off worlders. Fancy. I was out in the woods when the transport came down and…I… I ran. I didn’t trust them. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have run.”

He reached out and pulled Madi to him. She clung to him squeezing him around the waist as if she was afraid she would be taken away. He held onto her. 

“No. You should have. That was smart. They would have taken you, too.”

“I hid in the trees and watched.”

“Of course. Tell me what happened.”

“I couldn’t hear, they were too far away and they weren’t yelling or anything. They weren’t holding a gun on her, but there were an awful lot of guards around her. And two women. The fancy ones. They put her in the transport and then sent guards out. I took off into the woods. I didn’t want them to take me too.”

“They took her.”

“She was shaking her head. I know she didn’t want to go. I know she wouldn’t have left us. I mean she wouldn’t have left you like that without saying anything.”

“She wouldn’t have left you without saying anything. She wouldn’t. Not unless she had to.”

“What’s going to happen to her?”

Bellamy could hardly breathe. “I don’t know.”

“What are we going to do?”

He gasped. “Get her back.”


	13. What You Have To Do

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke has been given a proposition. 
> 
> Well, it's more like her hand is being forced. 
> 
> What will Clarke do to save her family?

“Mom,” she said as she was ushered into the transport ship, “What is this, what’s going on?” She was too much in shock at seeing her mother after thinking her dead these past 40 years of her cryosleep to really put anything together. And there was so much that didn’t makes sense.

Abby looked at her with wide, serious eyes, as if she was trying to send a message. The guards were heavily armed, and she recognized some of them from Polis Station. 

“Ms Griffin-Blake,” said the charter official, as he entered the passenger cabin from some hidden place. Clarke looked at him. Didn’t recognize him from when she and Bellamy had landed, but then, she really hadn’t done much on that end but get her transport scheduled for her claim. She’d been too overwhelmed by the whole experience to even pay attention. The official wore a tailored suit and his epaulets and shiny shoes seemed silly in the wilderness, but she wasn’t going to tell him that. “We’ve been informed that your charter is a fraud.”

“But it’s not!” she said, panic racing. 

“Tell that to your wife.”

She turned to look at the person she had not wanted to face, because her presence here on Eden filled her with dread.

“My wife?”

“Clarke,” Abby walked over to her. She wasn’t dressed in the brocades and silks that she was familiar with, to indicate her position as chancellor of Alpha station. Instead she was in utilitarian pants and a jacket that was worn at the cuffs and collar, a lot more like what Bellamy had brought with him when he left Factory. None of this made sense. The pieces didn’t fit together at all.

“Clarke,” Abby said again as she reached for Clarke’s elbow and held on, her voice dropping an octave, and sounding more like the chancellor when she was trying to negotiate some dangerous deal. Clarke swallowed. “It’s okay. The charter officials have been informed of your necessary escape from Polis just before the war broke out, and how your wife Lexa was supposed to come with you,”

Clarke’s eyebrows drew together. She had escaped Lexa, not the war. She hadn’t even known a war was coming. She stayed silent, and listened.

“But she had been drawn into the plot against her….” Abby was filling in the dots for her. The story that Lexa and her mother had come up with. To escape the revolution in their quadrant 40 years ago. It still didn’t sound right. Her mother had never liked Lexa and knew that Clarke had been trying to get away from her. Her mother was the one that found her the charter to buy in the first place, so she could escape. “And you had to hire a place holder spouse until Lexa could join you.” Her mother’s eyes were panicked. 

“Until…” Clarke’s heart stopped. 

“The coup stopped all Lexa’s plan. She came to me and we took the cryo ship that Alpha station had been stocking for the 40 year trip to ease overcrowding on Alpha. All this time. The revolution made it moot. They would not allow that new colonists to take that ship. So we took it.”

“Without a charter?”

Her mother pressed her lips together. “I had a charter. They wanted me to start a medical school. I was coming to join you. The plan had been to enter into the charter a few months on. The plans were moved up. I brought my medical team…” she looked up, “and refugees from Alpha station… but we didn’t have the funds to launch it.”

“I did,” Lexa added. “I missed my wife and I came to her mother with the deal. I knew she was coming to you. We had discussed it.” Lexa looked at her, eyes cold and still holding a grudge. She wasn’t acting like the Lexa who had smiled at her and drawn her in and made her fall in love. She was acting like the Lexa who faced off against Ontari, her most serious political rival.

Clarke had left her without warning. Clarke had run. And Lexa, unfortunately, knew how to hold a grudge. “So when my station destabilized and we were faced with the coup, I came to Alpha. We would take her ship and trade it to the colony charter to allow the rest of our staff to join the colony.”

“Staff?”

“We had to run for our lives, Clarke. It was a coup. Ontari came for my head. Do you understand? It was this or die.”

“I read in the histories that you’d been banished to some station.”

A flash of emotion came to her eyes and was quickly extinguished. Lexa raised her chin proudly. “A fabrication. There is a body double there now.”

“Living your prison sentence?”

“Banishment. She was glad to get it. She was nothing but a servant girl on Polis station. Now she’s treated with respect and doesn’t have to work a day in her life.”

Clarke laughed. 

Fire flashed in Lexa’s eyes and she took a breath as if to retort. She was beautiful and fierce and Clarke didn’t trust her at all. 

“I’d like a minute alone with my wife.” Lexa didn’t speak to her, but to the official, who gave her a sour look. 

“This is not approved. None of this is approved. You said she was aware of this all, and she does not seem aware at all. It throws your whole story into doubt. From all reports we’ve had about this marriage, they are a love match. They’ve adopted a daughter. I’m not sure I can approve these—“

One of Lexa’s guards stepped up, Gustus, Clarke remembered, her favorite. He was a big and intimidating man. He pulled a wallet out of an inside pocket and opened it, rifling through official looking papers, he handed one to the official. 

The man blinked and stared at him, then over at Lexa, stunned. Lexa nodded to Gustus. He took out another paper, and handed to the man, who looked at it.

The man cleared his throat and walked to the door without meeting anyone’s eyes. “Yes well then, enjoy your reunion. I will be in my cabin.”

Gustus followed him out and stood in the hall as the door closed.

“Clarke,” Abby warned and stepped close. “Be careful what you say. She has us under armed guard. A hundred of us. My medical team. Their families. My household. It was just supposed to be me and my team coming in to start a school. She rounded us all up and took our ship.”

Clarke’s breath caught in her throat. “You’re prisoners.”

“Insurance. To make sure that things work out for my people.”

“Did you kidnap my mother so that you could steal my claim, Lexa?”

She laughed. “Of course not Clarke. I love you. We were to be married. I want this life for us. A new start. Without all the politics and war and struggle. I know you—“

Clarke held up her hand, hardly able to understand. “Mom, I need to talk to Lexa alone.”

“Are you sure.”

She nodded.

“Okay, I’ll be right outside if you need me. If you have any questions.” She gave he a significant look. She was on her side. She was Lexa’s prisoner.

Abby left the room and the door closed. Clarke turned back to Lexa. “This can’t happen.”

“Clarke,” Lexa said, in that tone of voice that said she was trying to be rational. “I know you left me. I know why.”

“Why?”

Lexa took a step towards her, her body language changing, becoming soft, putting away the haughty commander role, and becoming Lexa, her lover. “Because of the politics. Because you didn’t want to live your life like that, and I get that. I understand and I don’t blame you for being afraid of what it meant. That’s why I wanted to marry you, so that I could bring you under my protection, under my power. No one would dare to touch the wife of Commander Lexa of Polis Station.”

“That’s why you think I left?”

Lexa put her hands on Clarke’s arms, gently. Clarke stepped back. Lexa dropped her arms and sighed.

“I know you hated how I treated you in public, but I had to. With enemies all around, they would have found a way to destroy you, just to hurt me. And it’s not like you didn’t bring your own enemies with you. They would have loved to take me down just to get at your mother who had entirely too much power on Alpha station as a mere doctor.”

Clarke laughed.

“You laugh, but you know it’s the truth. She brought connections, but she brought enemies too, and my love for you was dangerous for you. It made you a target. There were whispers that Ontari was setting up a plot against you. To kidnap you. I had to move fast. I drew up the marriage license. I didn’t lie to the Eden charter. We’re already married. You are my wife. It was signed two weeks before you got on the cryo ship.”

Clarke couldn’t respond. There were no words at all. She felt hot all of a sudden and her vision started to narrow in at the edges.

“Clarke? Are you okay? You look pale. Sit.” Lexa guided her towards a chair and Clarke had no choice but to sit or pass out. 

“You married me against my will?”

“No!” Lexa said. “Of course not. We were in love. We were practically living together. We were talking about you giving up your work to come live with me.”

“Uh, no. You were telling me I was wasting my time as a researcher and I was saying that it was my career and I wasn’t giving it up.”

“That’s semantics Clarke. I asked you to marry me. It was for your own protection.”

Clarke breathed deeply. “I said no.” Her head was clearing.

“That was just because you didn’t understand.”

“Oh I understood. I said no, because I didn’t love you anymore.”

Lexa stood up from where she was leaning over Clarke solicitously. “What?”

“I didn’t leave because of politics, Lexa. I left because what we had wasn’t making me happy. I wanted a different life. I didn’t like it on Polis. I didn’t like your world. And you weren’t who I thought you were. I’m sorry. I was wrong to leave the way I did but I thought that if I told you the truth….” She’d thought that if she told her the truth, she wouldn’t have let her leave, and it was looking like she’d been correct. And now she’d kidnapped her mother and followed her across the universe. Was it really to get her back? No. It was politics again. She wanted to start over, a fresh start where she could avoid all the repercussions of her actions on Polis. 

“I see.” Polished, ice cold Lexa was back. “That is unfortunate. Do you know why the official decided not to press on his doubts about us?”

Clarke felt a pit of dread in her stomach.”No, why.”

“I gave him weapons.”

“Weapons,” her heart stuttered.

“They’ve been having problems with the claimless. They want a way to pacify them. I emptied my armory before I went to your mother with my bargain.”

Kill. She’d given them weapons to kill the grounders. “That wasn’t a bargain. That was a kidnapping.”

“If that’s the way that it makes you feel better to look at it. This charter is odd. They have some rules that they do not bend on. I need to be married. I need to have a claim. It doesn’t matter how much wealth I bring to them.”

“That’s because if you don’t follow their rules to the letter, they steal your claim and your wealth. It’s a scam.”

Lexa nodded. She accepted the colony charter corruption without question. That was her world. “Ahh. Well then that makes this harder for you.”

“For me?”

“Yes. You are my wife and the Griffin Claim is now the Griffin-Trikru claim.”

“No.”

“You don’t get a choice.”

“No. It’s the Griffin-Blake claim. The papers have already been filed.”

Lexa’s cold political eyes turned hot. “You did not fall in love with some man two weeks after you left me. It could not possibly have been real. It was a rebound.”

Clarke swallowed. “You’re right. It wasn’t that quick. It was a process. I’m sorry. I fell out of love with you before I left. When I left, I was happy to be free of it all. . I love Bellamy. And I won’t give him up.”

Her eyes were hot, but her face was a mask of ice. “I thought I taught you, Clarke, the way the world works. I thought you understood. I thought that was why you left Polis.”

“Taught me what?”

“That love is a weakness.”

Clarke felt a heat burning in her, too.

“Your mother’s welfare is now linked to my own. If this scandal stains me, if I lose my claim—“

“My claim.”

“Our claim,” she corrected, “Then your mother might still have her place in their medical university, but her people will not. They will be cast out.”

“As will you.”

Lexa smiled thinly. “No. I will not be cast out. I’ve already sold my cryo ship to the colony charter for the claim. It is the Griffin-Trikru claim. Your name change never processed. Mine did.”

“Because you bought them with an inter galactic ship that wasn’t even yours to sell.”

“It was mine. It would have been taken by Ontari or blown up in the war if it hadn’t been for me. The claim is mine too.”

“I love Bellamy. I’m married to him.”

“Then you won’t be married to him.”

“I won’t dissolve him.”

“People die on the distant claims all the time, don’t they? I hear it’s a problem. The climate is harsh.”

“It’s semi tropical.”

“I hear there are bugs that are poisonous. And plants that are toxic. Animals that tear their prey apart. One never knows when a man who wakes up healthy takes a fall over a cliff or gets caught in the acid rain.”

“You can hear anything you want. We’ve survived the worst of the year. Learned how it works here.” Clarke said, but she knew what Lexa was getting at. Her voice died. “You can’t.”

“I brought my guard. They are very protective of me.”

Clarke remembered the instability of Polis. The way people disappeared and often she’d thought it was lucky they had, because they had been troublemakers. Trouble for Lexa. There were dome accidents and shuttle accidents and people going missing. She’d started to think they were suspicious when she got busy with work and couldn’t spend so much time with Lexa. When she’d found reasons to get busy with work. When she took on new projects. Because she preferred them to Lexa’s court, and Lexa’s world. The world that had followed her to Eden. 

She regretted it all now. Bellamy would disappear if she didn’t give Lexa what she wanted. That couldn’t happen. She wouldn’t let it. Lexa might have power now with her money and guns, but this was not Polis station and she was not in charge. And she didn’t know Eden. And it turns out, Lexa didn’t know her at all. 

Clarke blinked, and nodded, and felt that mask slip over her features. The one that kept her real self from the world, because the world was about buying and selling influence and power. She thought, in a way, that Lexa really did love her, even now. She could see the wounded pride behind the commander’s mask. The way she followed Clarke’s every move with those beautiful green eyes because she wanted her. She wanted her so much. And that was something that could be used. Maybe she would give Lexa what she wanted. And Clarke would get what she needed out of the deal. 

So Clarke smiled. Lexa thought she loved Clarke, but now Clarke knew what love really was, and it wasn’t ownership. It wasn’t quid pro quo. It wasn’t offering benefits or luxuries or pretty things to buy her. She couldn’t be bought.

“Okay, Lexa. I see. That’s the way things will work here. I’m not naive and I’ve learned. But I won’t put aside Bellamy. He’s my husband. And Madi is our daughter. I have a family and I’ve made my commitment to them. It is real, no matter what you might think.”

Lexa considered her, then nodded. “The daughter, okay. We need to begin our family and I see no problem with adopting a girl. The man? No. You have to marry me. That is the deal that the Eden Charter has made with me. I believe they are trying to steal my ship.”

“My mother’s ship.”

“The ship. Either way. You must put aside Bellamy and marry me.”

“Incorrect.”

Lexa’s bright green eyes narrowed. She hated to be thwarted. “Excuse me?”

“The charter allows for polyamory and they prefer two women and a man for a marriage alliance, as it allows for twice the progeny. I have already looked into this option. You will marry us. I won’t give up Bellamy.”

Lexa scoffed, her face fell into such a scandalized expression that Clarke nearly laughed. “I will not marry a man under any circumstances.”

Clarke grinned. “Well then you can marry me and become part of my harem. Bellamy is the first spouse and you will be the second, if you refuse to be part of an equal partnership.”

“Our marriage license was officiated before you even met him.”

“Bellamy and I were married two years before the ship left. Before I even came to Polis. You didn’t know me then.”

“I know you weren’t married!”

Clarke smiled, easily. “I lied to you. I’d been communicating with him over the inter webs and we fell in love. It was long distance and wasn’t exclusive. We agreed that we could have other partners. It worked for us.” She stood and walked away from Lexa. Turning back and waving a hand as if it was inconsequential. “The papers are all official.”

“You’re lying.”

Clarke cocked her head. “I lied. To you then. You turned my head and I fell in love with you, yes. You’re beautiful and passionate and intelligent. Why wouldn’t I? But I always had Bellamy and I didn’t tell you about him, because his relationship was mine, it was beautiful and untouched by any of the politics of Polis or Alpha stations. It was pure. And he wasn’t of the same class, and no one would have accepted that. We were secretly in love. 

“I was never going to marry you, Lexa. And I left you to be with him as soon as I got the chance to buy that claim.”

“You’re lying.” She repeated it, as if another time would make it true. 

“I always kept my life before Polis separate from you, didn’t I, Lexa?” It was because Lexa hadn’t really been interested in her prior life, but she didn’t have to know that. “Because I was keeping Bellamy a secret from you.”

Clarke watched Lexa’s heart break. She reminded herself that Lexa had kidnapped her mother and her people to control Clarke. That she’d threatened Bellamy’s life. 

“You will be second wife or not a part of our family. When it’s time for you to bear children for the charter agreement, Bellamy will be the father. I’m a doctor, I can do the in vitro fertilization.”

“Intolerable.”

Clarke shrugged.”That’s the way it works. Two wives means twice as many children. Per Eden Charter agreement. All the better to colonize the wild planet. I told you, I’ve been looking into the fine print. There are many requirements that aren’t evident on the surface, and if you don’t meet them, they remove you from your claim. I’m the citizen. I’m the one with the claim. I paid for it. If you don’t have a claim, you don’t have rights on Eden.”

“I have a cryo ship and a hold full of weapons.”

“And Eden claim can deny your petition and take it all. That’s how they’ve gotten so powerful. You will be left without a ship, without a claim, without credits and without weapons, without a way to get back to civilization and, let’s be honest, no where to go. You will either hire onto someone else’s claim as a…commander?” she paused, quite sure that there was no market for political tyrants on Eden, outside of the colony charter, anyway, “Or you join the claimless. You can become a grounder in the wilderness. Would that suit you? Or a worker in the fields or perhaps a denizen of comfort town?” Lexa’s face was shocked. She did not understand Eden, much like Clarke hadn’t, but this time, it worked in Clarke’s favor. “Second wife. Or not at all.” 

Clarke raised her chin and hoped Lexa took the deal, rather than just do what she wanted because she had the weapons and Clarke had her mother and Bellamy and Madi to protect. And she needed some time to figure out how to handle Lexa, while getting the people she loved out of the firing line.

It depended upon what Lexa really wanted here, and if she was willing to give up her pride. 

“I missed you, Clarke.” Her eyes were soft now, her face beautiful as an angel. Clarke wondered if she should believe it or if it was more politics.

“I missed you, too,” Clarke said easily, and falsely, she realized. She hadn’t. She’d been caught up in her new life, in Bellamy, in Madi and her friends, and in getting away from Polis. 

Clarke saw her take in a deep breath and a tension left her shoulders. She took a step forward as if to embrace Clarke. 

Clarke held up her hand. “No. This isn’t a real marriage, Lexa. This is a marriage of convenience. It’s a favor to you, for all that we once meant to each other, and for bringing my mother to me.”

“I asked you to marry me before you left!”

“I said no. And I love Bellamy. I’ve committed to him. If you want to make this a real marriage, you have to live our life, live with us. Farm our claim. And then we’ll see what happens. You have to commit to this new life, not the old one of being commander. There’s no place for that. You can’t just show up here and think you’re in charge. You can’t just take me because you want me.”

Lexa opened her mouth as if she wanted to speak but nothing came out. 

“My family stays safe. If anything happens to them, to Bellamy or Madi or my mom… or my mom’s people. This deal is over. And you’re out. I will draw up a contract saying so. I am the citizen. It will go through the charter. Your weapons will not sway them. But if you want a chance to be apart of my family, to…” she swallowed, “love me again, you have to agree to my terms.”

Lexa nodded, but Clarke couldn’t tell what was going through her mind.

“And I don’t want to see any of your guards on my claim. None of this war and politics are coming to my farm. They are free people here and get to make their way in the world. I’m sure they will be hired on by other claims looking for protection, but I have enough on my claim. I don’t want them. You bring your wealth with you, though. And that means the guns. We decide what to do with them.”

“We who?”

“Me. Bellamy. And you. We vote.”

“That’s two against one.”

“Did you think you were going to come in and take over, Lexa?”

She took a step back. “You’ve changed, Clarke.”

“I have changed. Part of it was because of you. And I’m sorry to say it wasn’t all the best change. But I’m trying. And I’m learning. And I’m happy. If you want to come join my claim, join my family, you have to accept my boundaries.”

“I only want you to be happy, Clarke.”

Clarke stared at her. How was she supposed to take that? “Then you’ve changed, too.” Their relationship had never been about what made Clarke happy unless it served Lexa’s needs. She shook her head. “I cannot guarantee you that you and I will ever have a romantic relationship again. This is not getting back together. Do you understand? I love Bellamy and I’m with him. This is giving you a chance at a new life. You can look for another wife and I will give you an uncontested dissolution so that you can marry her and move to her claim, if that’s what you want. Or you can attempt to join my family with Bellamy. But you have to prove yourself.”

“I always prove myself,” Lexa said. 

Clarke thought Lexa was getting ready to cry. She wouldn’t let that influence her. “This time, you’ll have to prove yourself as a person, and a second wife. You’re not the commander anymore. And I’m in charge.” 

Lexa blinked. Clarke could see her fighting back the tears. She wasn’t as brave and bold as she pretended, without her political power and military might behind her. “And Bellamy? What is his role in all this? This man I do not know and do not care for?”

“Bellamy?” Clarke cocked her eyebrow. “He’s my partner.”

“Does that mean he’s in charge too?”

“Yes.” And she didn’t have to like it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> honestly, this is not what I meant to have happen. But this is what happened. Who knows where it'll go from here. Don't worry, it's still Bellarke


	14. Arsenal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke is missing. Bellamy is left, waiting. Hoping for her to come back. With no way to go after her. If he even knew where she went. Madi wants them to run. Octavia wants them to run. Bellamy isn't ready to let go yet.

Clarke was missing. There was no sign of her, and when he called the charter officials, because they had to know where she was, she was taken off in a transport, all they did was note her as “missing.” Raven said that meant they’d started the clock ticking on the Griffin-Blake claim. If she wasn’t found within a week, they’d lose everything.

“A week!” he’d cried. The idea of not having her for a week seemed unbearable, but he knew that in the grand scheme of things, a week wasn’t that long. It wasn’t like she’d gone out into the wilderness where anything could happen. She was taken. 

Madi was cleaning her room. He’d thought it was a nervous habit, but then he realized she was planning what to take with when the charter came to remove them from the claim. She was going to run before they could. She’d separated piles into things she could sell on the black market and things she needed for survival.

“Madi,” he’d said, sinking down onto her bed. “Nothing is going to happen. Clarke will be back. We aren’t losing the claim.”

Madi just looked at him.

He had to take a deep breath and steady himself. “All right. I know Clarke will be back, but if she isn’t, you’ll be okay, Madi. We already set this up. You won’t ever go back to being an orphan. It’s in our contract now. If something happens to us or our claim, you go to Raven. Raven’s claim isn’t threatened.”

“If she doesn’t get married, it is.”

“She has three more years before that happens, and adopting you pushes the deadline back further. So you’re safe, okay? No matter what happens to our claim and no matter what happens—“ to Clarke. He couldn’t say it.

Madi pursed her lips and kept looking at him in a way that made him uncomfortable. “And what about you? Join the guards? They might not let you, you rank too high in the genetic lottery.”

“What the hell is the genetic lottery?”

She rolled her eyes. “It means you have good genes. You ‘won the genetic lottery.’ I saw Clarke’s files on you. Health. Strength. Looks. Intelligence. Psychology. You got, like genetic roots from all over the globe. They call that… wait… I remember… biogenetic diversity. It means you don’t got those recessive genes from inbreeding like so many of some of those isolated stations. The guard has to swear loyalty to the Charter, not family, so they can’t have kids, and they want you to populate Eden. They’ll probably pressure you to go to comfort town where you can be used as a stud.”

“Excuse me?”

“A stud. To knock up citizens. They’d be sure to monitor all the connections and children so they don’t hook up later. Keep the genes clean. You wouldn’t be a normal comfort dude. You’d get to live in that fancy mansion they have and they’d treat you real good. I mean. You wouldn’t have to work in the field or be worried about the monsoon season or sit in that factory trying to figure out a product to sell so you can make the claim profitable. You’d be set, until they decided your genetic material had been dissmeninated—disentimated—dis—“

“Disseminated.” There was a pit in his stomach.

“Right. That. And then they’ll give you a vastecomy—“

“Vasectomy. What the hell is Clarke teaching you?”

“Biology. But this was my own research. I wanted to see what kind of options we have if things go wrong. I ain’t going back to those workers fields. If Clarke survives, we’ve all got better options, because she’s a doctor so she can join the medical union and they take families. Comfort town doesn’t and the guard doesn’t. So we’d have to contract on to another claim or—“

“I told you. You go to Raven.”

“I heard you. But what about you? You want to be a stud? It’s a good life like no one else, but then they’re done with you and you’re put out into the regular comfort houses and that sucks. I’ve heard.”

“What the hell do you know about comfort houses, Madi? You’re just a kid.”

“Where the hell do you think they were going to take me when Clarke found me in Arbor Town?”

“Not happening. For any of us.”

Madi nodded. “Or you gonna disappear off into the woods with your sister and become a grounder? That’s an option. It’s rough and dangerous but they’re free. I’m thinking about it myself.”

“I said you’d go to Raven, Madi, you don’t have to look into running away.”

She nodded. “Raven’s cool, but I need a back up plan. You should introduce me to your sister better. Not like before, because that was a threat. No, like, as in, hey Octopus, this is my kid. That makes you her aunt. You should teach her how to be a grounder in case something happens.”

“Nothing is going to happen. Clarke will be back.” Bellamy felt like there was a fist around his throat, slowly tightening.

“Right.” Madi nodded again. “You should think about marrying Raven. She needs a husband. You need a wife.”

“I HAVE A WIFE!” He jumped up from the bed and paced around the room, raking his fingers through his hair and trying to calm down. He took in deep breaths and let them out again while Madi watched him, wide eyed. “Clarke will be back, Madi, but I get that you’re worried. So you need to know that we already have a place for you in case something happens to us and you are safe.”

“I’d feel better if you were safe, too.”

“Nothing’s going to—“ her disbelieving glare cut him short.

“Your best options are going grounder with your sister or marrying Raven. And I’d rather stick with you. So think about that. We can try the grounders, but if that doesn’t work out, it’ll be harder to go back on the grid and go to Raven, because the charter’ll call us traitors. But if we go to Raven’s first, we can still cut out and go to the grounders if it goes wrong.”

He was trying to control his breathing. Trying to keep from screaming. Or breaking something. He felt helpless. He didn’t even know where to begin to search for Clarke. She wasn’t in the woods. They’d taken her in a transport. But the charter officials denied knowing where she was at all. 

“I’ll make you a deal,” he said, swallowing heavily. “We have a week until anything is declared, right?”

She nodded.

“Okay. So if after a week…if… we don’t hear from Clarke, I’ll take you to Raven and contract on with her. I’m not—I’m not marrying her. I have a wife.”

“Okay.” Madi held up her hands as if pacifying him. “Contracting will buy you some time, but they may not let you stay single. Genetic lottery, remember. They’re watching you. And they’re watching you closer now that Clarke is gone. She was on the genetic lottery win list, too. I don’t know about Raven but she’s smart and pretty, not so healthy but hey, maybe that wasn’t genetic. I think they’d let it slide.”

“Madi.”

She looked at him and caught his face. “Sorry.” She closed the drawer she had been sorting. “I feel better. We’re going to Raven.”

“IF we don’t hear from Clarke.”

“Fine. If. We have a plan. And we have a back up plan. Octavia, right?”

“Fine.” His breath was coming shallow now. 

“Okay. I”ll stop getting ready to ditch. But tomorrow, we need to begin planning what we’re going to transfer over to Raven’s and we should start before the week is up. They’ll be watching us and they won’t let us take their stuff.”

“They’ll be watching us?”

“Just because you don’t have a ping on their satellites doesn’t mean they don’t have satellites. They’re always watching.”

He wanted to say it was nothing but a conspiracy theory but the Eden Charter was definitely conspiring against their colonists, so it was probably true.

“Okay. We’ll start tomorrow.”

He didn’t think that Madi picked up his despair because she sighed and he saw the tension go out of her. “Good. I feel much better.” She shoved the pile of gear off her bed and crawled under her covers. “You can leave now. I’m going to knock off and get up early so I can get a move on those transfer plans. I’ll make a list.”

“We have lists.”

“I’ll make a new list.”

“Okay,” he said and pulled the covers up around her shoulders. He brushed her hair back and kissed her forehead and watched as her eyelids slid shut. She was asleep before he could turn off the light and leave the room. He was jealous of her, that she could just switch it off like the lights. One minute she was furiously active and ready to go, and then the next minute, dead asleep. 

He didn’t blame her. Of course she was most concerned with what happened to her. With a life like she’d lead. And of course she had to move on from Clarke. She’d only been with them a little while. Of course she needed reassurance that she was safe, that she wouldn’t lose everything she’d gained and be left out in the cold again, at the mercy of a cruel system. Of course. 

She couldn’t do anything about Clarke being missing. She’d learned to let go of the things she couldn’t control.

Bellamy hadn’t. He felt Clarke’s loss like an ache inside of him. A missing organ. Nothing was quite working right without her.

But Madi was right. He had to be practical. He had to forget about his hollow heart and make sure Madi was okay. And apparently, in order for Madi to be okay, he had to be okay too. So he had to take care of himself. Clarke would have wanted it that way.

He gasped at the thought of Clarke in the past tense and stumbled outside. It was full dark. A few hours until sunrise. And he walked out into the middle of his field in the middle of his claim and let himself feel the pain of losing Clarke. 

He’d get her back. He’d get her back he knew. He was sure. But in this darkness, this loneliness, this silence unwitnessed by anyone, he let the fears in.

What if she was gone for good?

***

He didn’t go to sleep. He was still outside, staring up at the Eden sky when the sun came up, slipping a bright pink through the clouds curling above his head. He didn’t know how he could be seeing all this beauty without Clarke there, so he just stared.

And he was up when he heard the rustling in the woods. 

In seconds, his laser gun was drawn and pointed towards the shadowy draped figure coming through the trees.

“It’s just me,” Octavia said. “I made noise so I didn’t surprise you.”

He put his gun away and rubbed his face hard. “I could’ve shot you.”

“I took a risk. I heard your call to charter. Clarke’s missing.”

“You heard my call?”

“Yeah, we have tech. We’re not barbarians you know. We monitor the colony signals. Best to know what’s going down. Never trust them.”

“Tell me about it. Have you heard news of Clarke?”

She shook her head. “I came to get you out of here. It’s starting. We need to get you out of here before they start monitoring your farm. They consider this all their property, you know. No Clarke means it’s theirs. Why did you tell them she was missing?”

“Because I thought they might have known where she was. I thought they had her.”

“If they had her, why would they tell you?”

“Why wouldn’t they? Why would they take her at all?”

“That’s a good question. Why did they take her. They’re pulling something.” She shook he head. “Pack your kid up in the rover and I’ll take you to our settlement. Bring whatever you need. We won’t be coming back.”

“No.”

“Bellamy!” she said sharply, her long hair whipping around as she turned to him. “This is no time to be difficult. They WILL come, and they WILL take you away. They come with armed guards. They confiscate everything and strip your claim down to the bones. They melt your buildings down to the soil, remove your stock and crops, and set it back to wild land for the next colonists they’re bilking. This is what they do. You have to leave now.”

“No. I’m not leaving Clarke.”

“Clarke is gone, Bellamy. This is how it starts. Who knows why they took her or what they’ve decided to use her for but she’s theirs now. They took her from her claim.”

“Not Clarke. You don’t know Clarke. And I won’t abandon her.”

Octavia pursed her lips and shook her head. “And you don’t know Eden Charter. You don’t know the way they treat everyone like fodder for their games, the way they buy and sell people. This isn’t an eden, Bellamy, it’s a hell in an agrarian paradise. It’s all false.”

“You don’t know Clarke, and she won’t allow that to stand.”

“You’re a fucking dreamer, Bellamy. You haven’t changed a bit. Thinking you can change the world and protect the people you love.” She rolled her eyes and glared at him. She was hard. So hard. Whatever had happened to her here on Eden had changed her, too. She used to believe in love. She used to believe in a better world. He didn’t want this for her. He didn’t want this for any of them. He wanted to have hope.

The muscle leapt in her jaw. She was gritting her teeth. “They’re coming for you,” she said, “I guarantee you. You need to protect your daughter and your own life, if you ever expect to get back to Clarke, if she isn’t already dead.”

“She’s not!” he snapped. He flared his nostrils and took a deep breath to control his temper. His sister always knew the buttons to push. “She’ll be back and I’m not dreaming. We’ve talked, okay. She knows what they are and she hates it. She’s the dreamer, but she’s got a spine made of steel. Watch. She’ll be back.”

“Bellamy…”

“Don’t worry. I’ve already made provisions. We’re packing up to head to Raven’s claim. She can adopt Madi, she’s already in our papers as Madi’s guardian if something goes wrong. And I’ll contract on with her.”

“You should come with us. We’re the only ones fighting back against the charter. We’re the only thing standing between them and total control of the planet.”

“You raid colonists.” He looked at her in confusion. “How is stealing from already vulnerable colonists, and making them more at risk for the charter to swoop in and ruin them, at all standing in between the colonists and the charter?”

“We need those supplies so we can fight back!”

“You aren’t fighting back. You’re helping them succeed.”

“Bellamy—“ she growled, getting ready to start one of the fights that had her running across the galaxy in the first place. A thrumming set up under his ear bones and Octavia’s gaze shot to the sky, looking. “Transport!” she said. “It’s starting.”

He shook his head. “It’s too soon. She’s only been gone a few hours. It’s Clarke she’s coming back.”

“You’re a fool,” she said and turned around to disappear back into the forest. He didn’t have time for her. Those wouldn’t be her last words to him, he knew that.

Bellamy went to the landing pad. And waited for the ship to come down and power down. The door slid open and stairs unfolded to the ground.

When Clarke stepped off of the transport, he let out his breath for the first time in forever. She ran across the landing pad and into his arms.

“I’m okay, I’m okay,” she said as he lifted her off her feet with the force of his embrace. 

“I was so worried, Clarke. I thought you were gone. I thought the claim was gone. I thought it was starting.”

She buried her nose in his neck and held on tighter.

“It was.”

“What?”

“Bellamy… the past followed me here…”

Another woman was walking off of the transport. She wore practical pants and a shirt with a leather vest, but a deep orange cape was tossed about her shoulders and whipped in the wind from the transport. If it was supposed to keep her warm, none of that flapping would do any good. But he supposed it looked impressive.

She stalked towards them, her dark glare never leaving Bellamy’s face. A clear threat. She was beautiful and fierce and Bellamy didn’t like her. He turned to put Clarke behind him and stepped between her and the approaching woman.

“Bellamy,” Clarke said pulling on his arm so that she could get out from behind him. She put herself between Bellamy and the woman, instead, her hand firm on his bicep. “This is Lexa. My ex.”

“The Commander.” He knew who Lexa was. The woman Clarke had been running from. Who she’d been afraid would challenge her charter, their marriage, and keep her from leaving Polis in the first place.

“Her wife.” Lexa raised her chin and challenged him. 

“What the fuck?” None of this made sense. Clarke turned to him.

“Bellamy…” she started again, her eyes pleading with him to explain.

A phalanx of armed charter guards descended from the transport, with a man in formal attire at the front, looking uncomfortable and unhappy to be there. He had a tablet in his hands and walked towards Bellamy, his body language and expression very different from Lexa’s. He didn’t like it here. He didn’t like this business. He took a path around Lexa entirely and ended up in front of Clarke and Bellamy.

“Mr Griffin-Blake, I will need you to sign this marriage agreement, or I cannot agree to this farce.”

“It is no farce!” Lexa growled.

The man didn’t look at her. He blinked rapidly and scowled at Bellamy. “This ex-commander of a distant space station who caused a war half way across the universe has decided that your wife is hers. The charter has decided they like her ship and want it to be theirs. So sign the form.”

“Uhm. What?”

“I said sign the form. You are the original spouse by two years. Their marriage license was signed only 2 weeks before Ms Griffin-Blake joined the charter. A two week marriage is does not meet the longevity clause. I don’t know why the Charter agreed—“

“They said there were special considerations to be made,” Lexa ground out between bared teeth. He saw her hand go to her hip. She probably had a hidden weapon there, behind all those yards of dramatic fabric.

Bellamy widened his path and crossed his arms over his chest. He looked Lexa up and down. “I’m not marrying this woman. I’ve never met her before in my life and I don’t like her.”

She narrowed her eyes at him and he cocked an eyebrow back.

“I’m not marrying you, either, Man. I’m married to Clarke Griffin. My beloved. But apparently, as first spouse, you need to sign the license too, to accept me into your family. Clarke and I have already signed. You are the only impediment.”

He grit his teeth and felt a growl in his chest. 

“Bellamy,” Clarke said, her small hand pressing on his chest. He might have been about to narrow the distance between himself and Lexa, to do what? He didn’t know. He let out his breath and looked down at her. Her eyes said trust her. Her eyes said this was the right thing to do. Her eyes said don’t make a fuss, she’d explain when she could.

He was just so glad to see her. “I was so worried about you. You disappeared.” 

She curled her hand around the back of his neck and tangled her fingers in his hair. “I know. I didn’t have a choice. Is Madi okay?”

“She probably ran off to hide in the woods when she heard the transport.”

“So that’s where she went. They were looking for her when they took me.”

“I’m glad she did. She’s a wise girl.”

“That’s our girl.”

“Ours, Clarke. Not hers.” He looked over at Lexa who was glaring at them with undisguised jealousy. He tried to restraint the grin that he felt rising. He turned his face to Clarke’s hair and buried his nose there. She smelled like the small blue flowers that twined up the side of tall trees on the north slopes. They’d made soap out of them. God he’d missed her. 

Clarke sighed. “Madi will have to accept her, Bellamy. At least for now.” There were the eyes again. 

He held his hand out to the official who gave him the tablet and stylus. It was definitely a marriage agreement. Accepting a marriage between Clarke and Lexa two weeks before she left Polis. He only saw Lexa’s signature. He looked at Clarke. She quirked an eyebrow. Ahh. Lexa had the power to push a marriage license in absentia and without consent. Clarke had a reason to allow this to stand. As a citizen and primary claim holder, she didn’t have to. He continued to scroll the document.

“You don’t have to read the whole thing, just sign it!” Lexa snapped.

Bellamy licked his lips and cleared his throat. “My dear sister-wife,” he drawled, “I’d suggest you don’t begin this relationship with the idea that I am an idiot.”

Lexa’s face went nearly red, but she didn’t say a word as he read. When he got to the clause about the ship from Alpha Station and the list of passengers with Clarke’s mother’s name on top, his eyes shot to hers. She swallowed, but said nothing. 

When he got to the part about what wealth she brought to the claim, his eyes widened. Weapons. Not just laser pistols But weapons of war. He did not look at her then. He was too afraid of what his face would reveal to Lexa. To the official. To the charter guards. He made no move and continued to read, until he regained control of his expressions and got to the end.

She was second wife. He was first husband. Clarke had agreed to accept Lexa’s marriage with many provisions. He was certain that it was not the deal that Lexa had first proposed. And she’d done it to protect him. And Madi. And her mother. 

And now they were in possession of an arsenal. 

Bellamy slanted his eyes at the official. The very unhappy official. The official that he was sure would be happy if he could revoke their claim right now, and take everything. Land. Crops. Factories. Ship and arsenal. Arsenal. 

Bellamy smiled and signed the agreement. 

“Welcome to the family, Lexa Trikru. I look forward to your contributions to our Eden claim.”

Her lip curled in disgust for the slightest fraction of a second before she let her face go blank and controlled. “Thank you, Bellamy,” she said, and she was nothing but polite. But he knew it was a mask. He knew she was feeling out of control and panicked and possessive of Clarke and desperate. All emotions he was familiar with. 

He pulled Clarke to him with one arm around her waist, so glad to have her back that he wasn’t going to let her go for a while, and nodded to Lexa.


	15. Marking Their Claim

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lexa arrives at Clarke and Bellamy's claim. Did anyone expect it to go well?

The transport unloaded the container with Lexa’s weapons and the porters carted her few possessions. She hadn’t brought that much in her run from Polis when the rebellion descended. She had been unprepared for her flight across forty years and half a galaxy. 

She brought clothes and supplies and treasures that would be fit for a high ranking space station, not for a nearly unpopulated and mostly wild planet. Bellamy stood outside the house, with his feet planted and his arms crossed over his chest, looking imposing, as the freight was delivered into their house.

Clarke showed the porters Lexa’s room.

“The guest room?” Lexa asked.

Bellamy barely moved. “The guest room.”

Lexa followed the porters, to make sure her precious possessions were treated well. Clarke remembered that she’d had a love for fine art. Perhaps she’d brought some of her smaller pieces, fit into her luggage. Even if they would’t help them survive on the claim, maybe they’d make life a little more beautiful. That wasn’t a bad thing, was it?

She went back to stand by Bellamy. He shot a glance at her and continued, immobile, watching the guards and officials and porters climb back onto the ship and close up. They wanted to be gone as soon as possible. The official didn’t seem to like it out here on the frontier of civilized society.

“So what happened?” He still stood, stiff with his arms crossed, barely looking at her.

Clarke felt shamed, although she had done nothing to be ashamed of. It hadn’t been her fault. None of it had. She’d come onto the claim and took Clarke away, forcing her will onto them all. She had done what she could with the options she was given. “She kidnapped my mother, Bellamy. Stole her cryo ship. Came after me hoping to leave her political disaster behind, and take our claim for herself.” She said it quietly and briefly. It felt like there was too much to actually say.

“And this meant you should marry her?”

She turned to him. “You know it’s not real, Bellamy. She did it without my consent before I even left Polis. I never would have… I said no. I didn’t really get a say.”

He raised an eyebrow at her.

“I was afraid they’d look too closely into our...” she didn’t even want to say it out loud, incase someone was listening. In case Lexa was listening. “It put our claim at risk. Our whole life here.”

“So she got her way. She’s escaped her war, and all her political trouble. She’s here. And now she’s your wife. And I’m supposed to be okay with this?” He turned to face her and she could see his anger in the tension he held. “You’re really into this poly thing. This is the second time… at least this time it wasn’t me you were trying to marry off. But now I have a sister wife. A sister wife.” He tilted his head at her, pissed. “Come on, Clarke.”

“Bellamy!” She stepped close to him, held onto his arm. “It’s not okay, but I did the best I could. All the other options were worse.” She wanted to tell him that Lexa had threatened an “accident” for him, but she also was afraid to give him any more ammunition for his dislike of her. “Please, Bellamy. We’ll figure it out.”

He sighed, the distance melting from him, but the hurt feelings showing. “Does she know it’s not real… because the look she gave me does not say she thinks you and her have a marriage of convenience.”

“Yes, she knows. I told her in no uncertain terms that this was not real. It was temporary, and if she wanted any hope of making it real she had to give up all these pretenses of being in charge.”

His lips parted. “If she wanted any hope… If.” He huffed out a breath and turned to her. “Do you still love her?”

Clarke swallowed. “No,” she shook her head. “No. I stopped loving her before I even left Polis, Bellamy. It’s you I love. This is the marriage I want. I love you and I’m so happy with you. I’ve never had this with anyone before. You believe me, don’t you?”

He huffed a laugh. “But you’re not romantic, Clarke. You’re very practical. You married me for practical reasons. You tried to include Raven for practical reasons. Now you’ve married Lexa for practical reasons.” His eyebrows pulled together. “I’m not sure this will work for me at all.”

Her heart dropped into her stomach. She might lose him. “Then why did you sign it?”

“Because you wanted me to, and I love you. But now I’m having second thoughts. You told me about her. Is this who we want on our stake. As unstable as it is right now? With all these questions with the charter up in the air?”

“No I know but,“ he had to understand, “with the—“

“Looking for a way to get rid of me already?” Lexa came out of the house. Her voice was clear and dry.

Clarke took a step towards Bellamy, not sure if she was trying to protect Bellamy from Lexa or protect her from him. How had her life gotten more complicated? “Too warm for your cape?” Clarke asked, sliding into some other topic of conversation. Wardrobe had to be safe.

Lexa shook her hair so it fell loose and gleamed in the sun. “The drapery was part of my uniform of office as Commander. This was an official trip in the presence of Eden Charter representatives. I wore it to remind them of my authority. The transport has left, so there is no need in the more casual setting.” She said it like it was self evident.

Bellamy took a step back. “Yeah, well, in case you forgot, there’s no commander here, at all. In fact, there hasn’t been a commander for 40 years. Polis Station fell. You should remember that. This is our claim and we’re the citizens with the prior contract.”

“I have powerful friends, Bellamy Blake.”

“Bellamy Griffin-Blake. And no you don’t. You had a ship. Which they have now. They have no need for you anymore. They aren’t your friends. The Charter doesn’t make friends. They have marks who they swindle out of their fortunes and leave to die. You’re one of the marks.”

“How dare you! What are you but some mail order bride that Clarke bought so she could run away from her life?”

“Careful, Lexa.” She was willing to give Lexa a chance, but she wasn’t going to forget that she only got here by kidnapping her mother, and then Clarke, and then threatening her family. “You may not want to believe that I kept my long distance love affair with Bellamy a secret from you while I was with you,” Bellamy squeezed her wrist. It was the story they’d come up with on the cryo ship. He was sure to recognize it. She went on. “But you don’t really need to believe that we were in love before I met you, because he’s my husband and he came first, and according to charter rules, either of us can dissolve this marriage and you will be claimless and contract less and without any sponsors or survival skills. There’s not a lot of market here for the skills learned running a political empire on a space station.”

“Is that a threat, Clarke?”

“It’s no more a threat than you made me when you first offered your proposition to me. Was that a threat?”

Lexa tilted her chin up. Their eyes met. It had been a threat then and this was a threat now. “Fair enough.” Lexa said. I understand that everyone is running on heightened emotions—“

Bellamy snorted a laugh. Clarke wasn’t surprised that he didn’t think Lexa was showing emotion. She was very good at keeping them down, but Clarke knew her. And she could see the strain.

Lexa’s face remained impassive. “—But we all need to make the best of an awkward situation.”

“Yeah. That’s what this is. An awkward situation.” He laughed again. “Tell you what, Clarke, why don’t you take your wife on a tour of the claim. Maybe set her up with a task for the day. The animals need to be cared for and the crops need to be tended and I’m still working on my textile formula. We don’t have room for commanders here. She’ll be expected to work, or we’re done with her.”

Clarke nodded.

“I’m going to go find our daughter. She probably ditched as soon as she heard that transport coming and didn’t wait a minute to find out what it was. Do you know how hard I was working on getting her to start thinking she was safe with us? Thanks a lot, Lexa.”

“You’re welcome, Bellamy,” Lexa said stiffly.

He scoffed. “That was sarcasm, Lexa. Do you not get sarcasm?”

Her chin went up again, but it looked more offended this time. “Sarcasm is the product of an un-evolved mind.”

Bellamy laughed. “For real, Clarke?” Clarke didn’t know what to say. Lexa had no sense of humor. It was true. She overlooked that when she had fallen in love with her, but she saw it now. She couldn’t really talk to him with Lexa there and she didn’t really want make the antagonism between them any worse. This was a delicate balance. She just looked at him, willing him to let it slide until they could talk in private.

He sighed, but the leaping in his jaw stilled and his shoulders dropped a few inches. “Fine. I’m going to find Madi. She’s probably hiding in the woods. You and the head honcho go let the beasts into the east paddock. They didn’t get the attention they should have while you were gone.”

She nodded but and he turned to go with a resigned expression on his face. She couldn’t let him go like that. He must have been so worried. And she’d just sprung this on him. “Bellamy!”

“What?”

She leaned up and kissed him, soft, and pure. Just enjoying that she had him back when she was worried that she might never see him again. “I love you.”

He quirked a tiny smile and stroked her cheek. “I love you, too,” he said and there were no other words, but there was a promise in his eyes. Then he turned to go find their daughter.

 

***  
It had been the longest 24 hours of her life. 

Between Raven’s operation and then being kidnapped and needing to negotiate with her ex girlfriend, and then bringing her home as her WIFE and needing to get her up to speed on the farm. Then she had to run interference between Lexa and Bellamy and now Madi? Because of course Madi didn’t like her.

Clarke had stupidly told her stories of her life before Eden, when Madi had showed such an interest in the civilized world on the other side of the galaxy. And of course she had told her about the politics and backstabbing and power plays that were why she’d left, Lexa being one of the chief architects of her misery. She had no idea that she would ever see Lexa again. For all she knew, Lexa had lived and died after having a full life. But it was not so. Here she was, her past came back to haunt her. Clarke thought that Madi might hate Lexa even more than Bellamy did. 

“I’m not calling her mom,” she spat out, first thing as soon as Bellamy had dragged her back to the claim.

“You don’t call me mom. Why would you call her mom?”

“Maybe I’ll start calling you mom. But I won’t call her mom.”

And that was only the beginning of the sniping. “Go work with Bellamy, Madi,” she told her half way through the day, when it was clear she was going to be resentful the entire time instead of showing Lexa about animal husbandry.

“I thought I had classes?”

“Not today, Madi. We lost a day. We have to catch up on chores.”

“We lost a day because of HER. And she’s too slow to help make up for it. So it’s taking even longer.”

“I’d like to see you handle one tenth of my responsibilities on Polis,” Lexa snapped. “Instead you’re just rude to a guest.”

“Yeah, well there is no Polis, is there? And you’re an invader, not a guest.”

Clarke sighed and had perhaps agreed with Madi a bit much to scold her for her rudeness, but rather just sent her to Bellamy.

When Lexa tried to complain to her about Madi’s disrespect, Clarke had turned on her. “You never should have come, Lexa. This is my life and my family, and I will never forgive you for how you tried to come in here and take it away and make it yours.”

Lexa had looked at her, with her heart in her eyes. “I did it because I care for you. I missed you. I wanted you back.”

Clarke just looked at her like she was speaking some foreign language. “That’s not how you care for someone, Lexa.” And then she moved her to the next field to pick the vines for Bellamy’s textile mill. They had to dry first, and they were behind in harvesting them. Clarke was surprised at how long it took Lexa, and surprised also to realize how much she had learned in the months she had been working her own farm.

At dinner that night, everyone was quiet. The stew was delicious and even Lexa praised it, although Clarke thought the praise was directed at Clarke herself for providing the meal. 

“Thank you,” said Bellamy.

“You cooked this?” Lexa said in surprise.

“Who else? You were with Clarke all day. Did you expect we make Madi do the cooking? Do you see a private chef anywhere?” he went on, “If you’d like to learn how to cook, I’ll teach you. Clarke is learning and so is Madi. It’s an important skill to have out here.”

“You’ll teach me?”

“What did you think was going to happen when you were living on our farm as part of the family, Lexa?” Clarke asked. “Did you think we’d wait on you all day? That Bellamy would be your servant? No. You’re going to step up and we’re going to make it so that you can step up. That means teaching you. Just like we teach Madi.”

“And I teach you, too,” Madi said, prideful and with a sly look.

Lexa scoffed. “A child teaches you?”

“I know more about the woods than they do. If you get lost? I know how to track and get you home. I know what we can eat and how the weather cycles work and they way the system goes and what you have to do to survive. I’ve been surviving 12 years here. You’ve been here, what? 12 hours? If you were smart you’d want to be learning from me, too.”

Lexa blinked at her. 

“But I haven’t decided if I’m willing to teach you yet. I don’t like you.”

“Madi!” Bellamy said, disappointed in his voice, at the same time, that Clarke declared. “All right, that’s enough.”

Madi switched her glare from Lexa to them. 

“Clean up your plate and go to your room. You’re done for the day.”

Madi got up and gathered her place setting. “Fine by me. I hope those locks you put on the doors work, because I don’t trust her.”

When she’d flounced off, Lexa spoke. “That child has no manners.”

Bellamy turned to her. “Just because you’re mannered and polished, don’t mistake yourself for polite. Polite people do not barge their way into someone’s home and then look down their noses at their hosts. I get that you aren’t used to life out here, but it’s a good life and we’re doing our best, and you have made that more difficult and put a strain on all of us. So I think it’s about time that you reconsider your position on this planet, on this claim and in this house. Because as far as I’m concerned, I may have signed that contract, but you are not a member of our family.”

Lexa gasped. “Clarke. Are you going to let him talk to me like that?”

Clarke shrugged. “I agree with him. I don’t like the way you treat Madi or Bellamy as if they were beneath you. And I don’t like the way you treat me as if I were your possession. I’m not. And if this is the way you’re going to be, I will call for an immediate dissolution.”

Lexa face was a mask, but Clarke saw the pain behind it.

She relented. “The first thing you need to do here, is to try to get to know us. Including me, as a friend.”

“A friend.”

“Were we ever friends?” Clarke shook her head. “Now’s the time to start.”

Her face remained a mask but Clarke saw a glimmer in her eyes. “I think I’ll retire to my room also,” she said and made to stand.

Bellamy raised a finger. “Take your plate to the kitchen and wash it. Set it in the rack when you’ve done so.”

Lexa recoiled for the slightest second then picked up her plate to do as she was told. 

“The locks on the doors do work, Lexa, in case you need to feel secure, too. It’s a strange place.”

Lexa raised her chin and did not respond. But after she washed her dishes and went to her room, they heard the snick of the lock turning. 

Bellamy turned to Clarke. “You wanna go to bed now? I’m exhausted.”

She sighed. “So much.”

They finished cleaning up and he lead her to their room by the hand and she let him. Because she’d missed him and because she wanted him to take over now. She wanted him to lead the way. He opened the door for her and closed it behind her, smiling at her as he locked the door. 

“Really Bellamy? You’re afraid she’s going to do something to you while you sleep?”

“To me? To you? I don’t trust her. I’d rather lock my door and feel a little secure. I need to be able to rest. I didn’t get any sleep while you were gone. I was too worried.”

Clarke sighed. “You didn’t?” She wrapped her arms around his waist and laid her head on his chest. She could hear his good strong heart beating. “I didn’t either. I was too busy trying to negotiate the menace out of that damn marriage contract.”

“How did that happen, Clarke.”

“It happened because she kidnapped my mother and her people and then lied to the charter about everything, putting not only our claim at risk, but also my mother and one hundred of her people. And you.”

“Me? She couldn’t have done anything to me. I was here.”

“Bellamy, she had all her own fully armed and trained guards. Warriors. She said you could have ‘an accident.’ She had a container full of weapons.”

Bellamy shook his head and guided her to the bed, where he urged her to sit. “You think she was going to come after me.” He untied her boots and pulled them off as she talked. He took off his own.

“She said if I didn’t give you up, I didn’t have to have a husband at all. That you could die of any number of accidents. I just… I couldn’t Bellamy. I couldn’t risk it. Not losing you. Losing the charter I could handle. We’d go to Raven or even the grounders, but I couldn’t do it without you. She agreed to adopt Madi, but that’s before she met her. I doubt she would now.”

“Madi’s a wonderful child,” Bellamy said, and began unbuttoning her clothes. Removing them slowly. Squeezing the tense muscles as he went. He climbed up behind her on the bed and massaged her neck and back. 

“I would have lived in the wilderness with just you and Madi. As long as I got to have you,” Bellamy murmured into her ear. His warmth breath sent a shiver down her spine. “I’d rather that than let her come in and ruin things with us.”

She reached up behind her and ran her fingers through his hair. “She won’t ruin things, Bellamy. It’s you and me, okay? I promised you. It still is. This? This was strategy.”

“How does marrying someone become strategy?” He lay down on the bed and propped his head up on his hand. She turned to look at him. Her heart swelled three sizes. She had him back. She wouldn’t lose him. She leaned towards him and kissed him. When the kiss ended, she pulled his shirt off, then ran her fingers over his muscles.

“I defanged her Bellamy.” He cocked an eyebrow at her, and ran his own hands along her clavicle, barely touching her bra. Teasing her. Skipping down to her waist and settling his big hand there.

“How did you do that?”

“I had the power, Bellamy, but she had the militia. If I had turned her away, not only could she throw our marriage and claim into doubt, but she could have negotiated with some other citizens or maybe the charter itself, to destroy us. We didn’t have the man power or weapons to fight her off. She’s got the arsenal for a whole space station! That’s more than the charter has, or they would have used it by now on the grounders. Colonists don’t come to Eden colony with an arsenal. It’s supposed to be an agrarian Eden.”

He squeezed her side. “If you had turned her away, the charter would have gotten the weapons.”

“She was already using them to leverage influence. I couldn’t allow them to get ahold of all that firepower. It would give them too much power, against colonists, against the claimless, against the grounders.” 

He sat up. “But now she’s brought it here. We can keep it safe.”

“No Bellamy. She didn’t bring it here. I made her sign it away to me. To you and me. It’s ours. It belongs to the claim. If she does anything that makes us dissolve her connection to us, she loses it all. This claim. Her weapons. She’s already lost the ship, or sold it for the chance to get a claim in the first place. She’s lost my mother and her people as her hostages… they’ve been taken in by the medical union. She’s lost all her guard. I wouldn’t have one of them. Not a single one.”

“She’d lose you.” Bellamy added, and curled his hand around her cheek.

Clarke shook her head. “She lost me a long time ago. She doesn’t have me. You have me. Okay?”

He bit the corner of his lip. “So you’re saying you saved our claim, saved my life, saved the grounders and my sister, and got us a weapon against the Charter that just might make it so they can’t control us anymore?”

She let her breath out and nodded. 

“Clarke,” he said, and she had to look at him, because she didn’t recognize that tone of voice and it made her nervous.

“What is it Bellamy?”

“I’m sorry I ever called you a princess. You are a goddess.”

She rolled her eyes and laughed at him, but he kissed her with a passion that she clung to. “I love you Bellamy,” she said against his lips.

His hands travelled up and down her body, getting rid of the last of her clothes. “You have enough energy to come a couple of times loudly?”

She laughed but her voice was already husky with desire. “You want Lexa to hear us fucking?”

“Marking my territory,” 

“Oh Bellamy, you don’t have to—“ she started, but she couldn’t finish. And when she came, she didn’t even try to keep it quiet.


	16. The Smart Thing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Raven meets the new addition to Clarke and Bellamy's claim.

Raven’s rover crashed through the trees, veering off the road and up to the fence outside of the paddock where Bellamy was working with the beasts.

Bellamy heard the door slamming shut and Raven limped out, half-skip hopping her way over to him. Murphy came running around the other side a beat too late. 

“Raven! Slow down. Raven. Stop, you’re going to hurt yourself, you’re still recovering!”

“What the HELL is going on over here!!” Raven yelled at Bellamy, completely ignoring Murphy and shoving him away when he finally reached her and tried to support her with an arm around her waist. “What are you doing just tending the herds?! Where the hell is Clarke and why are you not going after her?”

“I’m sorry. We tried to keep it from her as long as possible while she was recovering,” Murphy said still trying to get Raven to take the weight off of her leg.

“Raven…” Bellamy started, trying to explain everything that had happened in the last two days. “I’m sorry I should have told you—“ 

“Damn right you should have told me. We have to get everything going right now. You will come to live on my claim now. Get all your stuff we have to go now. Do you know what happened to the last people on this claim? They fucking came in the middle of the night while they were sleeping, and they ripped up their fields and melted their houses around them. You stupid idiot, you—“

“Hey, Raven, do you mind not calling my husband an idiot?” Clarke came strolling out of the barn where she’d been showing Lexa the equipment.

Raven took a stumble back at the sight of her and Murphy finally got an arm around her.

“You’re alive!”

“Very much so. We had some… complications. There’s a new member in the family now.”

Lexa exited the barn and walked out to meet the small group who turned to watch her. She held her head high as if she were royal. Bellamy sighed. He didn’t think she realized how off-putting that was when she was surrounded by regular people, not galactic leaders and diplomats. No one wanted her pride and authority when they were digging in alien dirt and trying to survive.

“Hey. I know who that is.” Raven said, scowling. “That’s Lexa Trikru, the tyrant of Polis Station who destabilized a whole quadrant with her illegal alliance with Mount Weather colony. Do you know what you’ve done to interstation relations? Forty years have passed and the quadrant is still recovering from that disaster. What the hell Clarke? Why is your ex girlfriend here. I thought you hated her?”

Bellamy saw Lexa’s eyes slip to half mast, emotionless and cold. That was a tell, he realized. Raven had struck a painful blow. If he hadn’t been trying to figure her out like his life depended on it, he might have missed that. She wasn’t made of ice after all. 

“You know nothing of me,” Lexa said in a voice like a knife edge.

Raven laughed. “The hell I don’t. I had nothing to do while recovering from Clarke’s surgery and lay in bed researching what happened to Clarke’s ex girlfriend. She was telling me some stories to keep my mind of the surgery and I got curious. Do you know how hard I had to dig to get those documents? They’re not online. I had to pull strings to get someone to scan the static tapes and send them to me. Modern history of the other side of the universe that hasn’t caught up to us yet is hard to come by. I’ve been staring at your pictures, and I know what you did. It all came out after Ontari was killed. You shouldn’t have double crossed her. She was even worse than you.”

Then Clarke was on her. “Why are you out of bed? You’re not supposed to be using that leg while it heals. If you strain the regenerators you could set yourself back even further. Bellamy!” 

Bellamy came around the fence. “What?”

“Pick her up and get her inside off of her feet.”

Bellamy made to reach for Raven. “Uh— no. My legs work just fine thank you.”

“They do now. Let’s let them heal so they can keep doing that. Do not strain the technology. If this fails we need to go more invasive. You do not want me doing open surgery on your nerves or to have to try to heal naturally. It will take ten times as long. If this fails, you can’t take the regenerators again so soon. “Off your feet. Doctor’s orders.”

“Belllamy—“

“Doctor’s orders,” Bellamy swept her up in his arms and she smacked him on the chest but didn’t struggle. He’d bet that she wasn’t as casual about her healing as she pretended.

“Murphy, do something.”

Murphy shrugged. “Nope. Doctor’s orders. I tried to keep you from storming out here in the first place. I told you not to run around. I told you you had to stay in bed. But you don’t listen to anyone.”

“Damn you all.” 

Bellamy carried her into the house and set her down on the couch, sputtering as she went, but subsiding when Bellamy stepped back. 

She glared at everybody. “What the hell is going on here? Murphy said you were missing! And why is the wicked witch of the west here?”

Bellamy let out a short bark of laughter as Clarke looked at Raven sternly. Lexa glowered. “I’m fine, Raven. There was a… charter confusion.” If Clarke thought that would put Raven off, she was wrong. 

“What the hell does a ‘charter confusion’ mean? That’s no good. That’s no good at all. Any confusion can be used as an excuse to take your claim away. Get that shit nailed down and do it now.”

“It’s solved, Raven. I fixed it.”

Raven narrowed her eyes, looking back and forth between Clarke and Bellamy and Lexa, who stood on the outskirts of the room, clearly uncomfortable. Bellamy supposed that she felt out of her element with friend type people rather than political type people. Or neighbors. Or anyone she couldn’t lord her power over. Bellamy shrugged and failed to answer Raven’s unspoken questions. He thought he’d leave this one for Clarke. Seeing as it wasn’t his idea at all.

Raven shook her head and flared her nostrils. “This is bad. I can feel it’s bad. It’s starting go sideways on us.”

“Raven. No. It’s okay. Lexa is my wife now.”

Raven stopped chomping at the bit. Her jaw dropped open. 

Murphy whistled. “I did not see that coming. I never thought Bellamy would let you go. And I can’t believe you dissolved him. You’re so in love. No.”

“I didn’t dissolve Bellamy,” Clarke snapped. She shot a dirty look at Murphy for even thinking it, which mollified Bellamy somewhat. “I’ve taken Lexa as a second spouse.”

Raven’s eyes were huge as she looked back and forth between Bellamy and Clarke and to be honest, the whole fiasco was almost worth it to get to see Raven speechless. Then her eyes found Lexa in the corner, and she started laughing. “You’re second wife? Wow. How the mighty have fallen. You tried to gain control over half the quadrant, and instead, you’re second spouse on a subsistence farm out on the frontier of a barely inhabited planet.”

Raven doubled over laughing on the couch.

“And you are?” Lexa asked stiffly, her shoulders so tight she was like a sprung wire. 

Raven wiped the tears from her eyes. “Oh. Wow. Your highness.”

“My title is commander.”

“Was, babe,” Murphy interjected. “Now your title is fresh meat. Welcome to Eden. I hope you survive your first year.”

Now Lexa turned her fierce glare onto Murphy. “I am no fresh meat. I’ve been trained in six different forms of martial arts. I could kill you with my little finger.”

Murphy laughed and held up his hands as if in defeat. “Don’t mess with this one, Raven. She’s dangerous. What am I? Just a delinquent who got kicked off his hereditary claim.”

“Yeah, well she’s a second wife and I’m a citizen claim holder. Also an engineer and a mechanic and a genius. So settle down there, Commander. It doesn’t matter how many fingers you use, we’re not your enemies here.”

“That remains to be seen,” Lexa sneered.

“Oh for gods sakes. All of you, settle down. This is not a successful meeting. We’re all friends here, Lexa. Raven is our neighbor. And ally. She’s the only reason you even had someone to come to to save you, so I expect you to be polite.” Clarke threw up her hands. “You,” she pointed a sharp finger at Raven, “Don’t move. I need to check the regeneration of your nerves.”

“I’m fine. I feel just great—“

“Well you won’t be able to feel the damage to the regenerators until your nerves started screaming again, so how about you not move until I check everything out, okay?”

Raven shrugged and rolled her eyes. 

“You, Lexa. You come with me and help me collect my diagnostic tools. I don’t want to move her again until I’m sure she hasn’t damaged anything. I’ll do my check up here.” 

Clarke shoved Lexa off down the hall to her medical lab and eyed Bellamy significantly, nodding her chin towards Raven. Bellamy had to fill her in.

He sighed with relief. Clarke didn’t want him to keep Raven in the dark. He didn’t want his friends not to know either. When Clarke and Lexa had closed the door to the lab, Bellamy was sure that Clarke was going to lecture her on how to behave with their friends, and Bellamy turned back to them.

“I told you, Raven! Polyamory is the answer to EVERYTHING. You should learn to listen to me.” Murphy was grinning. As if this were the best show they’d had in a while. 

“Shut up, Murphy. Let the man talk. Talk, Bellamy.”

Bellamy told them the story, the theft of the cryo ship, the hostages, Clarke’s kidnapping and the hold full of global weapons that were now stored in a container behind their mech barn. 

“Holy shit, Bellamy.” Raven said.

“Weapons. If the charter got those, the whole story would change. We wouldn’t have a chance against them.”

“But you got the weapons,” Murphy said, speculation in his voice. “Or your wifey did.”

“No. They’re ours. They belong to our claim now. They belong to me and Clarke. And Lexa. We get to say what happens to them.”

Raven looked at him. Thoughts turning behind her eyes. “And what are you going to do with those weapons?” 

“The smart thing to do would be to sell them. For goods and services. Or favors,” Murphy said. His fox like face keen.

He looked at them both. “That would be the smart thing to do, wouldn’t it.”

The office door slammed open. He felt sure that Clarke was loud on purpose. So they would know that she and Lexa were coming back into the room. There was a tightness around her eyes. “Well when you care about people, sometimes you make choices that are about how you feel, not what is smart, because their welfare is more important than your victory. Something you maybe should learn.” Clarke wasn’t even trying to be quiet. They’d been fighting and Bellamy couldn’t help feel vindicated just a bit. 

Bellamy shot a look towards Raven, who had one eyebrow cocked high, glaring at Lexa. “This one’s a trouble maker, Clarke, you should cut her loose before she drags you down.”

“I would be more mindful of how you speak of me,” Lexa spat. They’d definitely been fighting. Lexa was more affected by it than Clarke was, and that put a smile on his face. 

“Leave her alone.” Clarke said, and her voice as icy. “She’s my friend.” There was a pause, as if she was leaving room for the judgment on whether or not Lexa was her friend. 

Bellamy took the heavy diagnostic reader from Clarke and kissed her temple. “You okay?” he asked, quietly, just for her, while Murphy and Raven got their backs up, arguing with Lexa about just how “fresh meat” she really was. Bellamy almost wanted to laugh. It felt very much like the way they talked about Clarke and him when they first met them. Fresh meat. Dumb rich people. He kinda got their point.

She nodded. “Yeah. We just haven’t settled things from before I left, apparently. Or. I thought they were settled, but she apparently does not. She still thinks my medical training is beneath me. And now she thinks everyone else is too. I’m doubting this whole marriage thing. It’s fake. Faker than ours ever was.”

“Not really, babe.” Bellamy brushed her hair back. “I kind of thought you were just like her. And I was just with you for the trip and the claim, wasn’t I? Same reason as you were with me. At least you knew her first. At least you loved her.”

“I didn’t know what love was, Bellamy,” she murmured into his ear. He clutched at her arm. Everything about her made him feel like he was finally in the right place, finally on the right track. Finally the right person.

“Now you do, huh?”

She nodded, then l drew her brows together in concern. “I knew I had to keep Lexa on our good side while she had those weapons. I thought that this marriage, however fake, was the best way to minimize the harm. I knew we needed to keep those weapons out of the hands of the charter, but what are we going to do with them? Start a war?” She sighed heavily. “Everything is getting so complicated. Was this the smart thing to do, Bellamy? Bringing her here?”

“No. I don’t think it was the smart thing.” He watched Clarke deflate. “But I think it might have been the right thing, and maybe even the best thing.” 

Clarke looked at him in surprise. He was surprised himself. There was a glimmering of an idea that could maybe change everything. 

“What?” Clarke asked, because there was something between them, something that they never could have planned for when she ordered him from the space spouse store. A deep connection. They understood each other, on a profound level, and she knew that he’d found the key.

“Raven!” Murphy shouted, trying to hold her down as she struggled against him to possibly fight Lexa, who stood off to the side, smirking down on the healing woman. 

“Let’s see her try to make it through a night stuck out in the woods without Clarke and Bellamy protecting her. Let’s see it. No really. Let’s see it. Put her out. It’ll be fun.”

“Raven,” Clarke said, and went over to her, settling her back on the couch so she could check her progress. She looked over her shoulder. “Bellamy, please take Lexa out of here and explain to her how things work between our two claims.”

Bellamy grinned at her. Because that glimmer had become something a bit like hope. The smile he turned on Lexa had her blinking in surprise, which he rather liked. He knew it had an effect on anyone who was at all interested in men, but he didn’t think it would have an effect on Lexa. He slung an arm around his sister wife and lead her from the room.

He was really enjoying her discomfiture. She swallowed far too frequently for it to be innocent. That made his smile wider. He licked his lips and turned it on. 

“It’s okay if you’re attracted to me. I am a superior biological specimen. That’s why the charter likes me so much. It’s normal. It doesn’t have to threaten your sexuality. We’re still sibling spouses. It’s not like that. I can appreciate your beauty and you can appreciate mine without ever moving into anything other than platonic.”

She pushed him off of her and he couldn’t help but laugh.

“You are reprehensible.”

He rolled his eyes. “I’m teasing you. 

“Well it’s not funny.”

He let out an exasperated sigh. “Is anything funny, Lexa?”

“Not really. Nothing about this is funny. None of it turned out like it was supposed to. 

He laughed.

“I said it’s not funny!”

“You were heading to colonize a new planet across the universe, without contacting the person you thought was your wife, although she never agreed to be your wife and ran away from you. Your space station revolted against you and you lost everything including your power. I just don’t understand why you thought when you got here, you’d just get everything you wanted, just because you were the commander. Of a station long since gone.”

“That is not at all what happened.”

“It is exactly what happened. You lost power, and came to a place where you thought you’d just pick it up again as if it were your birthright.”

“It is my birthright. I was born to it. I have the genetic code to—“

“Maybe on Polis. But Polis Station doesn’t exist anymore. You have no birthright here. You have no power here, and the sooner you recognize that, the sooner you can actually start over and have a life. Isn’t that why you came here? To start over?”

“Not from nothing!” Her face flushed and he thought she was going to cry. It was shocking honestly. She ducked her head and let her hair hide her reaction. 

He nodded. “When Clarke and I first met—“ he realized he was about to tell her the real story of Clarke and he. “In real life, and she was so amazing. She was who she was, the daughter of her parents, the girlfriend of, well, you… so famous and powerful, I couldn’t believe that I could have her. That she could be mine. That I would get to be a part of her life. I called her a princess.”

“She said that was why you were separated in the first place, and why she ran away from the quadrant. Because her people wouldn’t accept your class.” 

She was peeking up at him through her hair. She was trying. He supposed he could try some too. “Yeah. Because she was a princess and I was a toad.”

“A toad who was a superior genetic specimen though.” She raised her chin. 

He let out a short bark of laughter, surprised. “See, now, that’s funny.”

“I wouldn’t join a marriage of anyone but the best.”

A compliment. He smiled at her. He saw the corner of her lips quirk up but instead of smiling, she looked down her nose at him. She was unable to open up. He shook his head. 

“That’s the thing. I called Clarke a princess, and she might have come from that kind of background, but she’s something that enabled her to survive here in a way that leaves all that princess stuff behind.”

“What? Brilliant? Motivated? Passionate?”

She was still in love with Clarke, that was for sure. A surge of jealousy went through him, but he pushed it down. He trusted Clarke, and he knew Clarke loved him. And only him.

“She is all those things, but no. What allowed Clarke to survive here is her adaptability. Clarke adjusts to whatever situation she has to deal with. She will figure it out. She doesn’t expect the world to conform to her, she adapts to the demands of the world. She learns. She grows. She works harder than anyone I’ve ever seen. She never considers herself above anyone and she never expects anyone else to do what she wouldn’t do herself. Clarke is…” 

“I understand. She’s wonderful. You love her. Clarke is your wife.” The bitterness was clear. She was jealous of him. She knew she’d lost Clarke. She knew their own marriage was a sham and she could see that what Clarke and he had was real.

It oddly gave him no comfort. Maybe he wasn’t as threatened by her as he thought he was. Maybe he was understanding better.

“No. I told you. Clarke is adaptable. If you want to survive Eden, you have to forget your old life, and adapt.”

“Why do you care, Bellamy? You’d be glad if I died. You’d be rid of me.”

“I’ll be honest, Lexa. I’d be happier if you weren’t on our claim, but no. I don’t want you to die. I want you to survive. I want this colony to be something more than what it is. Something better, and in order for that to happen, I have to be something better. And I have help people when they get to Eden. And I have to give them the benefit of the doubt. And I have to trust.”

“Like Clarke.”

He laughed. “No actually. Like Raven. We almost died. Clarke and I. The charter set us down here unprepared for the acid rain storms. They’d meant for us to die in the first wave, without shelter. And Raven plucked us out of the monsoon that could have killed us and helped us get our claim set up so we could survive. Just like they meant to take your ship and your weapons. What happens to you after they get it doesn’t matter. That’s the way the charter works here. They drop people unprepared for the environment and then they take what they’ve brought with them.”

“That would not have happened to me.”

“Yes, Lexa, it would have. It did happen to you. You are no different than any of us dropped down here on this plane to fend for ourselves. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. Your space station had you on top, and the rest of the people were your subjects, even Clarke was your subject there. Here, the charter strips us of our power through deceit or neglect. Now we’re all the same. We’re all in the same boat and we have to look out for each other. You got lucky that Clarke is a good person and took pity on you.”

Lexa stared at him. Like she was angry. Upset. It was such a threat to her to not be in charge. To be powerless like this. He was sure she didn’t like the idea of pity. She looked younger now than he’d ever seen her. Hardly much more than a girl. All that power and still so young. He saw her eyes glisten with unshed tears. She narrowed them and glared.

He shook his head sadly. “You don’t have to be commander here, Lexa. In fact, it will all go a lot better for everyone, you included, if you just let yourself be a regular person.”

She blinked and stared at him, her mouth agape just a little. “I don’t know how to do that.”

He nodded and turned away, out, to look at the trees and mountains and pink tinged clouds. “Adapt. Learn. Listen. Adjust to the situation at hand.”

It was a while before she spoke. “I will try.”

He let out his breath. “Good. Why don’t you finish up with what you were doing in the mech barn before Raven brought the drama to our quiet, peaceful little claim.”

Lexa snorted, rather unglamorously. 

He nodded and they separated, her going into the barn and him going back into the house to check on Clarke and their friends. He didn’t let her see his smile. He wasn’t really sure why he was smiling in the first place.


	17. Monsoon Party

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke and Bellamy have been on Eden for a whole year. The monsoon season is here again.

Lexa stood in the newly built porch addition, watching the storm clouds fill the bowl of the sky. They were dark, nearly violet, and roiling. The line of her shoulders was angry. As if she wanted to fight the sky.

Clarke let the front door close behind her and Lexa turned stiffly. “They are not back yet.”

“They’ll be here.”

“They know the acid storms are due today. We went over this twenty times.”

“Yes, Lexa, we went over it with you.”

“And here I am, at home, under shelter. While your husband and daughter are out traipsing about in the wilderness,” she pointed up at the sky, “and poison that could eat the skin off their bones is ready to fall at any minute.”

Clarke stifled a laugh.

“You find this funny?” Lexa stood erect and tilted her chin, her imperial manner always her go to defense mechanism. 

Clarke bit her lip. Lexa would never admit it. She loved Bellamy and she loved Madi. No matter how they bickered at each other and mocked the other, the months she’d been on this farm had taught her that they were her family. Life was not about constant war and political maneuvering. Clarke saw something in Lexa that she’d never seen before. It was a freedom to be herself. To not be perfect and stoic. 

The Lexa they’d begun to get to know was, honestly, still kind of a bitch, but she was at least a real kind of bitch, who would stand up for what she thought was right and who she cared about.

And right now she was standing up for Bellamy and Madi.

“They are stupid idiots to go out to harvest that vile bready fruit last minute. We have plenty to last us the monsoon season. I should have tied them to their chairs.”

She was afraid for them, and she was always slightly violent when she felt vulnerable. Clarke turned away so that Lexa wouldn’t see the smile on her face.

“Don’t worry. They’re wearing the new acid rain jackets. They are made specifically for this.”

“Stupid!” she spat. “Stupid man and stupid child. Those are untested.”

“Well,” Clarke got control of her face and turned back. “The rain hasn’t started yet and I’m sure they’ll be—“

“What are the two of you doing just lollygagging about on the porch like some sort of antebellum debutantes?”

Bellamy came around the corner of the house with Madi, pushing the hover cart.

Madi shook her head. “You married yourself a couple of princesses, Bellamy, sitting around watching from the porch while we do all the work.”

“I only married one princess. The other one is Clarke’s fault. Did you check on the armory like I told you? You can’t be too careful out here on the frontier.”

Lexa recoiled like he’d slapped her. “How dare you, Bellamy. If you think I did not check the inventory and make sure it was secured. As if I did not have more responsibility in my little finger on Polis Station than you’ve had in your whole life!”

Lexa and Bellamy squabbled as he took the cart to the store room. In fact, Lexa followed him, just so she could argue with him and berate him the whole way. And he mocked and snarled at her back. 

“Are they ever going to get along?” Madi asked, shaking her head.

Clarke grinned. “That is them getting along.”

Madi scowled at him. “That makes no sense. They’re like bitter enemies. They’re jealous over you.” Madi knew that Clarke and Lexa were married in name only, but also knew that they had once been together. All sorts of strange marriages and alliances were formed on Eden, due to the strict marriage and contract rules. And they weren’t always peaceful. She knew that. And she knew their romantic entanglements didn’t fit with their legal ones. 

But it wasn’t really Madi’s concern. Clarke shook her head. “Bellamy knows I love him, and only him.”

“But Lexa…”

“Has come to understand that what we had was of a place and time. I represented something to her, and she… well, I thought I wanted her life the way it was. I was wrong. Her life wasn’t what I wanted and being with her in that life wasn’t going to make me the person I wanted to be. I had to find that on my own.”

“That doesn’t make any sense, either. She’s not the commander anymore. So why don’t you like her the way she is without that life?”

“I do like her. I like her better than I did when I was in love with her. But who she is inside doesn’t fit with who I am inside. And I think she recognizes that too. She can have that peace that she sought from me in Polis, all on her own, here. She doesn’t have to look for me to fill it. And I’ve found my freedom here, on Eden, with you and Bellamy. You see? We were looking for the wrong thing from each other and in each case, it was an escape from a life we were both caught up in.”

Madi was shaking her head back and forth. “No. Nope. I’ll never understand. You grown ups and your romance bullshit.”

“Language.”

Madi rolled her eyes, because she’d heard a lot worse from Clarke. “Where’s Raven? I need someone sensible to talk to.”

Clarke smiled. Madi was at that age where she thought all romance was disgusting and foolish. She might have been right. It was awfully complicated. Maybe someday she’d understand why people wanted romance anyway. “She called. She’s running a little bit late. Something about the party supplies. They’ll all be here.”

Madi looked at her, doubtful. 

When the first few raindrops splattered to the ground. Clarke repeated herself. “They’ll be here. And besides, they’re going to be in the rover and they all know how to survive the monsoons. They’ve been here a while, okay? Don’t worry.”

“They have the rain gear we developed?”

“You trust that gear, huh?”

“We developed it.”

The pride of ownership in her voice warmed Clarke’s heart. 

But showing any kind of warm emotion to Madi was a sure way to make her withdraw and get all adolescent-rebellion-ish. Clarke rolled her eyes at Madi instead. “You better hope so. We’re depending upon your judgement here.”

Madi’s chest swelled. “You can depend upon it. I’m right.”

Clarke shook her head. “What happened to the pessimistic girl we adopted, who believed that everything was a scam and there was no use hoping.”

Madi looked her straight in the eye. “Someone gave me a better world to hope for.”

Clarke had to swallow back the lump in her throat. She turned away to hide the tears. She would make sure Madi got lots of cake tonight.

Lightning flashed and thunder rolled through the hills. Clarke and Madi turned, as one, to look out on the clouds as a downpour opened up. The air smelled of metal, and Clarke felt a shiver of fear, remembering last year, looking out as the rain dissolved all she and Bellamy had hoped for, rearranging their lives as they watched.

“But Raven’s not here yet…” Madi started.

And just like last year, they heard the engine through the trees. The rover came roaring down the road and out onto the drive, charging full speed across the claim to stop short right at the awning they’d recently set up near the rover bay. There were covered pathways between all the outbuildings now, so they could continue their work during the monsoon season without being scalded.

Madi headed down the pathways to meet up with Raven and the rest of the delinquents. Bellamy and Lexa came out of the store room at the same time, but Lexa veered off and came to stand with Clarke, while Bellamy helped them unload the rover and take things into the main room.

The rain on the walkway roof drowned out any sound of their conversation.

“I have been thinking about asking Raven to marry me.”

Clarke choked on nothing. “What? Since when?”

“It makes sense. They will take away her claim if she is not married soon and you and Bellamy do not want a third.” Lexa stood stiffly. “I do not want to be a third.”

Clarke thought about what she was going to say. She was proud of Lexa for recognizing that Clarke and Bellamy didn’t want her, and prouder still that she recognized what they wanted was important, and it wasn’t just about her getting her way because she was commander. She had come a long way. And Clarke knew she wasn’t happy, either. Oh she was content enough, but she’d caught her watching them, Clarke and Bellamy, as they cuddled after a long day, or the way they would talk quietly, intimately, and Clarke recognized the longing in her eyes. She didn’t think that she was still longing for Clarke in specific, but she thought that she wanted what Clarke had with Bellamy. She wanted something more. 

“I didn’t know you were in love with Raven,” Clarke said carefully.

Lexa shook her head almost imperceptibly and raised her chin. “I could be in love with her. She is beautiful and smart and resourceful, certainly an appropriate candidate for a mate.”

“But you aren’t in love with her.”

“Love is over rated. We would do well together. We would create a claim that was strong and powerful and had influence on Eden.”

Clarke watched Raven as she unloaded the rover. Her limp was much better, and she no longer needed the canes to help her walk. It would never be gone, but she knew the pain was much reduced and with her new, less bulky brace, her mobility was almost as good as anyone’s. She’d never be a long distance runner, but she was happy to be traipsing her claim again.

“Raven’s not interested in a marriage of convenience. If she were, she could have any number of mates. And I don’t think you’re interested in a marriage of convenience, either.”

“What choice do I have, Clarke,” Lexa snapped. “I can’t stay here. We’re in the middle of nowhere. Anyone I meet as a potential suitor will of necessity be interested in me only for my title.”

“I told you, Lexa. Commander means nothing here.”

“Don’t fool yourself, Clarke. Power and leadership and fame holds weight wherever you go. Anyone who agrees to marry me and let me into their claim will be doing it for the glamour and notoriety of my background. For how they can leverage my status in their own power play on Eden. The best I can hope for is someone like Raven, who is not politically motivated and just needs to keep her claim.”

“So you’re willing to have a loveless life just to get away from me.”

Lexa glared. “Do you count my charms so little, Clarke, that you don’t think I could seduce Raven Reyes?”

Clarke choked again. “No. No. You have plenty of charms. Maybe just think about dating her, before you pop the question first, though.”

Lexa rolled her eyes and sighed heavily. “Dating. If this were Polis, I would invite her to my bed and that would be all that was necessary.”

Clarke blinked. “Is that what you did to me.”

She smirked. “My charms were good enough for you.”

“Wait—“ she hadn’t thought about that at all. She’d thought she’d fallen in love, had a say in it, been swept off her feet. Did she just get ‘picked?’ Was that what being swept off your feet meant?

“Unfortunately, with these ridiculous marriage laws and clauses, there are very few single compatible women around. And there are none in your acquaintance, other than Raven. I’m just lucky she’s not completely male oriented, at least I have a chance. So you say I should court her.”

“Uh—“ no she didn’t really think she should court Raven. Raven did not like Lexa, it would be harder than just overcoming her general preference for men. She didn’t trust her at all. And Clarke thought it wasn’t quite true that she knew no female oriented single women. She just hadn’t introduced them to Lexa, of necessity. 

But Lexa wasn’t really looking for Clarke’s approval.

“Yes. You’re right. Courting. That seems the right course of action.” Clarke saw the calculation behind her eyes as she looked Raven up and down. She raised her brow. And then walked off, without anymore discussion. She had made up her mind. 

“Oh boy,” Clarke said, and followed after, getting their Monsoon party together.

***

Raven and the gang were impressed with their efforts. They’d lit candles and lanterns for atmosphere, and had music recordings from forty years ago playing softly on the sound system. They’d also used some byproducts of the textile mill to make shimmering streamers that draped across the beams of the ceiling, and only because Bellamy hadn’t figured out a way to sell them yet. He was in a conference with Emori trying to figure out how they might work as decorative embellishments, while Clarke put out the delicacies she and Madi and Bellamy and even Lexa had made. Mostly sweets, to be honest. But Murphy had taken care of the dinner and Monty had taken care of the moonshine. Harper was twirling Madi around the main room, teaching her a dance that she’d learned back on her home station. Madi was thrilled. 

“This is some spread you’ve got going, Clarke,” Raven said, taking one of the fudge squares from the table and nibbling delicately at it. “Your house really turned out great once you got the chance to get those fabricators going. I never thought that I’d want high ceilings like this, but it kind of keeps the claustrophobia away during those long monsoon weeks, huh?”

“We’ll see about that. It’ll be our first monsoon season here. The last one we spent with you. And then in the one room cabin.” The cabin was now Clarke’s office. And it served. And it always reminded her of her time alone with Bellamy. It was kind of their honeymoon, before they had to take care of business.

“I’m really glad you came, Clarke. You and Bellamy. And I’m glad you survived.”

“Yeah, well, that was thanks to you. I don’t know what we would have done without you.”

“You would have figured out a way. Hardscrabble maybe, but you’d have done it.”

“Or we would have been asphyxiated in the gasses.”

“Nah. You’re a genius doctor. You would have noticed the symptoms before you let it get that far.”

“Accept the thank you, Raven. We owe you everything and you’re a part of our family now. We won’t ever forget that.”

Raven wasn’t really good with emotions. She hid her head when her eyes started shining and instead pulled Clarke in for a rough hug. “I love you, okay Clarke? And your dumb husband, too. I’m so grateful for what you’ve added to our lives.” She muttered and then pushed her away. 

“I love you, too, Raven….”

“Uh oh. Why does that sound menacing?”

“I should warn you.”

“Now I’m definitely worried.”

“No, no, nothing all that bad, but… well… I think Lexa is going to try to court you.”

“Court me?”

“Seduce you.”

“Excuse me?”

“Well I think he motives are noble. She wants to marry you.”

“That’s a terrible idea. Why would she want to marry me?”

“Because she doesn’t want to be a third anymore. And you’re the only single woman she knows.”

“Way to make a girl feel special.”

“I don’t think she means it like that.”

“Wait. Is she in love with me?”

Clarke shook her head. “I think she thinks it makes sense. A logical step for two people who need a mate. I told her to court you first and so now she’s, well, I think she’s going to make a move on you.”

“Is that why she keeps filling my glass with moonshine?”

Clarke laughed. 

“Well it’s not going to work. She’s not my type.”

“She knows you’re mostly into guys.”

“Well sure, but for girls, you’re more my type. Not her.”

“Me?” Clarke blinked back at her.

She nodded. “Curvy and friendly. She needs to find someone who likes that perfect, graceful, composed thing. That’s not my thing. I like a girl a little more rough around the edges.”

“Well, I—“

“That’s a good thing. But it wouldn’t have lasted with us.”

“Why not?” 

“Oh. Because I love you, but I’m not in love with you. And Bellamy sure is.” She smiled and reached out to squeeze Clarke’s arm. “I love the way you are together. You give me hope that I can find someone who loves me like that. That I can love again, someone who will be there for me, no matter what.”

Clarke felt the warmth bloom in her chest and her eyes found Bellamy where he was in conversation with Emori. He smiled at her and she felt as if all was right with the universe. 

“You’ll find it, Raven.”

“I’m holding out for it.” She popped the rest of the fudge into her mouth. “But for now, maybe I’ll have some fun with Lexa.”

“What?”

“I’m single. She’s beautiful. Why not? It’s simpler than getting into the mix with the people on my claim and it’s been a while for me. Or maybe I’ll just let her flirt with me and play the game. I have to see how it goes.”

“Raven…” Clarke said a little dismayed. “Don’t mess with her. She’s vulnerable. She may not be in love with you, but she’s taking this seriously. She needs a new marriage. Her future depends upon it.”

“Fine. I get it. But if she wants to seduce me, she’s going to have to work. It might work. I don’t know.” Clarke opened her mouth to protest again. “Don’t worry, I won’t screw with her.” Raven walked off to where Lexa was sitting and let her fill her glass with moonshine and Clarke watched her go.

Suddenly Bellamy was there.

He kissed her cheek. “You okay, princess?”

She sighed and leaned back into his broad chest. “It’s just Lexa and Raven.” She turned in his arms. “I wish we could have told them,” she said quietly.

He didn’t respond, just took her hand and pulled her down the hall to their room, where they closed the door. 

“You know we can’t trust Lexa. Not really.”

“I know. She’s always looking for the political advantage, even here. And if we gave her one….”

“She could turn us in. She could turn my sister in.”

“She could ruin everything. But Raven? Why don’t we tell her?”

“Because the fewer people who know, the fewer people who are in danger, who could give us away, and who are at risk. You know this.”

“And the fewer of our friends who have to bear the responsibility if it goes wrong.”

“Plus Raven will take Madi if—“ he broke off.

“If we get caught.”

“We won’t get caught.”

“And whose plan was it to tell Madi herself about all of this?”

“Well, it was Madi. Herself. She’s nosy and she followed me when I met Octavia and the grounders to finalize our plans.”

Clarke sighed and sunk down on the bed. “I know. She thought you were looking for a way out of the charter and weren’t going to take her with you.”

“So fucking suspicious.”

“She gets that from you.”

“Clarke, we literally adopted her just a few months ago. I think I can’t be held to blame for this.”

“But blaming you makes me feel better.” She flopped back on the bed, and put her arm over her eyes. “Ugh, Bellamy. I’m so nervous. This plot could ruin everything we have.”

“But what do we have if it’s always at the mercy of the charter? What do we have if we know that other colonists are being abused and oppressed, children being used, women and men in virtual slavery. Others being hunted.”

She felt him lay down next to her. Just his presence made her feel better.

“This was your idea. You wanted a better world. Getting Lexa’s arsenal into the hands of the grounders was the key to ending Eden charter’s tyranny. You were right. It’s worth the risk.”

She rolled over to look into his deep brown eyes. “Is it? We risk losing all this, you and me. I never thought—“ she couldn’t finish the sentence. Her love for him rose up and took her words away.

Bellamy gasped, shaking his head, no words and pulled her closer. He kissed her temple, her cheekbone, her jaw. “If we go down, we go down together,” he murmured. “You and me, okay? And we leave the world a better place if we can.” He made her braver. She tangled her hands in his hair and kissed him. Kissed him with all her feelings, all her love, her belief in him and her faith that whatever happened they were together.

“Together,” she said, and rolled until he was on top of her, pressing her into the bed. She wanted all of him and she wanted him now. He groaned and clutched at her thigh, bringing it up around his hips so she could feel him pressing into her. 

They didn’t need any more words between them. They knew that this plan they had set into motion could mean the end of everything, or it could mean new hope for all. Maybe it was worth the risk, but they were going to take what they had, while they still had it. 

She was tugging at his shirt trying to get him naked so she could touch his skin without barriers when someone pounded at the door.

Bellamy lifted his head from clavicle. “What?” he snapped.

“Nuh uh, no way,” Murphy called back from the other side of the door. “This is the monsoon party. You got to wait until everyone passes out to get busy. Get your asses out here, love birds. We’ve got a truth or dare game starting.”

Clarke frowned. “If you corrupt my daughter, so help me Murphy, I will murder you.”

He laughed. “Who do you think had the idea to play truth or dare. You better get out here to supervise. Anything could happen with that girl. She is a true delinquent.” He said it with pride. Dammit. 

Bellamy laughed into her neck. “He’s fibbing. He’s just as protective of her as we are. Don’t believe him, he’s just trying to mess with us.”

“Yeah, well, it worked,” she said, and shoved at his broad chest so he’d get off of her. He sighed heavily. 

“Fine,” and pressed a final hard kiss on her swollen lips. “I love you, Clarke,” he said and then rolled off her and onto his feet. He pulled open the door to find Murphy there grinning, holding up two glasses of moonshine doctored with something purple. “What is that?”

“It’s my new concoction. Made of some of those berries Madi found for us. It’s delicious.”

“It would have to be to make that moonshine better.”

Clarke groaned and got up, straightening her clothes. “We were busy, Murphy.”

“I know that. That’s why I interrupted you. Sneaking off to go have sex while you have guests. For shame.”

Clarke quirked her eyebrow and remembered that they’d actually snuck off to discuss political dissidence plots and perhaps it was best if Murphy didn’t know that. She had the feeling that he’d like to blow some shit up. That would not keep Raven’s claim out of the crosshairs of danger if this went wrong. Thinking they were just screwing was a better option. “I’m not ashamed,” Clarke said, and took the drink from his hand. She took a swig and was surprised. “This actually tastes good! Try it Bellamy.”

He looked at Murphy suspiciously then just as suspiciously at her. He downed the whole drink in one swallow.

“Hey, now, you can’t even taste it like that,” Murphy protested.

He blinked at grinned. “It actually tastes good. Congrats on another great recipe, Murphy.”

“Thank you!” Murphy said, mollified. “Now get on out there.”

Bellamy nodded and slung an arm around Clarke’s neck, nuzzling her ear. “Drink up. It takes the edge off.”

Clarke tossed the rest of her drink back. “Okay then. Let’s go have a monsoon party.”


	18. Raided

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Monsoons are raging, and they're supposed to use this time on the claim to take it easy, but Lexa refuses to, and she discovers that their arsenal has been raided by the grounder rebels. What are Clarke and Bellamy to do? Report the robbery, or keep it under wraps for the benefit of their claim and future?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been working so hard on my novel deadline that I kind of got burned out. I've been working on this chapter forever, and I hope it worked out okay. I'm still a little brain dead from my month of binge-editing. I'm planning one more chapter on this, as long as the story doesn't suddenly get complicated on me. I thought I'd just get this out there now, since we just found out that we have to wait months for season 5. Here have a substitute drama. I should put more action in. Action is hard to write. I don't know why.

“Hey Bellamy,” Madi stuck her head into the old cabin, which Bellamy had taken to using for his reading during the storms. It was cozy and reminded him of when he and Clarke were alone together. 

He loved his life now, but he liked spending time just with Clarke, too. So when he looked up at Madi, he was only slightly annoyed by the interruption. “Yes, what is it?” She stood in the door, her hands wrapped around her latest attempt to master knitting. She trailed a ball of yarn behind her.

“I thought you might like to know that Lexa’s getting suited up to head out into the acid rain.”

Bellamy put his tablet down and stood up. “Shit. Where is she?”

“Out on the back porch. You’d better hurry.”

He didn’t run exactly, but he did rush out the door.

“What are you doing?” he demanded of the dark haired woman.

She glared at him. “I see the child tattled on me.”

“Where are you going, Lexa. It’s acid rain. You’re supposed to stay out of it.”

“Do you think that only you and the idiot child are allowed to test out the acid rain gear? Do I not also have a stake in this hold and the production of goods? I am going to continue with my chores and I’m going to test out our product in the mean time.”

“You don’t need rain gear to take care of the stock. We have covered walkways between all the outbuildings.”

“I am not checking on the stock.”

“Then what…” He suddenly realized. “You don’t need to do a security check in the acid rain, Lexa.”

“Who else will do it, Bellamy? It’s my chore. You set it for me as soon as I got here to familiarize myself with our land. Well now I’m familiarized and I need to learn more about how the acid rain interacts with the land, buildings, crops and claim.”

“You can wait until there’s a break in the rain. This is not a break.” He pointed at the fierce downpour currently pounding on the porch roof and splashing into the yard only a few feet from where they stood. 

“I am aware. I cannot familiarize myself with how the acid rain interacts with the claim unless I witness it interacting.” She said it as if he were slow. 

“Lexa,” he said, exasperated. “The fumes.”

“I am limiting my rounds to twenty minutes at a time at which point I will check my oxygen levels. Clarke has already shown me how. I have access to the medical unit.”

He pressed his lips together firmly and shook his head.

“What are you going to do? Tattle to Clarke like the idiot girl tattled to you? You will be too late, because she’s gone to check on Raven’s leg. Murphy came to pick her up in their rover and she won’t be back until I am done with my rounds.”

“So you planned this out, did you?”

“What need have I to strategize my chores, Bellamy? You are being ridiculous and I do not need your over protective urges. I am not one of your girls.”

He had a hard time not letting the sneer slip onto his face because he didn’t want to admit it. She had become one of his girls and he wasn’t going to let her go out in the storm for the first time all by herself.

“Dammit,” he growled.

“What are you going to do, tie me to a chair?”

“No, commander,” he spat the title, “I’m coming with you.” He opened the door and yelled to Madi. “Hold down the fort, Madi, I’m going with Lexa on her rounds.”

“You’re both stupid,” Madi called back.

Yes, they were, he privately agreed, but didn’t say a word as he pulled on the harsh weather gear and Lexa gaped at him.

They tromped off together through the stinging rain. And yes. The gear was working, but it still splashed into their faces. They’d have to do an alkaline wash later. They checked the fence around the back while Lexa took notes on the land and he took notes on the gear. 

“No!” Lexa gasped. 

He turned to her. “What is it? Is the gear leaking? You have a burn?” He took his bag off his shoulder to get the first aid kit.

“The damn electric fence has been cut!”

Bellamy let his hand holding the bag droop. “What?” He was confused for a minute.

Lexa went to the fence and put a gloved hand to the wire.

“Don’t it’s electrified!” Bellamy warned.

“No it’s not. The circuit is broken. The whole defense system is down. Look. Someone’s been through. The vegetation has been trampled.”

“Maybe it was the storm…” he began.

“Do not be a fool. You know nothing of raids. It was done with technology and space ships on Polis, but was a regular scourge of my reign.”

“Raids?” 

“We were raided during the height of the acid storm.”

“Impossible. They couldn’t have. It’s too dangerous.” Bellamy took a slow turn of the claim, looking over their land. “We need to check on the animals,” he said.

Lexa was not listening. She headed for the locked canister with the armory, but before Bellamy could follow her, she’d taken off into a sprint. Bellamy sighed and ran after her. 

She started running. “No.”

Bellamy took a deep breath and caught up to her just as she was pulling open the canister.

“They broke the lock. They disarmed the warning system. How?”

“Fuck.”

“Everything,” she said. “They took everything.” Her face went blank and white. Like bone. 

Bellamy let out a shaky breath as he looked into the empty canister. The weapons of warfare, missiles, bombs, automatic weapons, targeting systems. “All gone,” he said. He covered his face with one hand and then cursed again. “Fuck. That stings.” His gloves were covered with acid rain. He’d forgotten. The winds began to whip up again. He grabbed Lexa’s arm and pulled her away. Closing the door. “Do I bother locking it again?”

“Why? The lock is useless and there’s nothing to steal anyway.”

“We need to go check on the livestock, to make sure they weren’t taken.”

“We’ve been taking care of the livestock the whole monsoon season. We can hear them howling all day long. They did not take the livestock. They did not want the livestock. They wanted the armory.”

“We need to check our live stock and our barn and our factory. It’s how we make enough to survive so we can keep our damn claim. Armory or not. We have to protect our livelihood.”

“You have no understanding of what is important in the grand scheme of things. This—“ she gestured at the emptied armory, “is catastrophic.”

“That—“ he gestured also. “Was extra. It didn’t keep us alive.”

“You are a fool, Blake. That can start a war. They can come for us next. We are all in danger now.”

Bellamy glared at Lexa and gave her a shove towards the rest of the outbuildings. “We check on the rest of our claim first. Livelihood first. And we’ve always been in danger. You were protected by your power and privilege. Down here on the ground, you make sure you can survive before you try for anything else.”

“We need to call the charter and report the theft.”

“You call me a fool, Lexa? They don’t care about us getting robbed. It’s better for them. The weaker we are, the closer they are to taking everything we have from us. They care about getting their due for the charter and if we don’t have enough to pay, they take our claim.”

“They will care about this.”

“Check the stock and barn and factory. Now.”

Lexa’s narrowed eyes drilled holes into him but she relented. “Split up so it will go faster.”

“Hell no, you’re going to skimp and run back to call it in first. If the charter gets a whiff that we can’t keep our claim productive we’re on their watch list. Everything we do will be suspect, if it isn’t already. You’re coming with me until we know we’re in the clear for productivity. Understand?”

“Are you always so suspicious? Have I not proved my loyalty?”

Bellamy paused and cocked his head. “Not really, Lexa. You’ve been going along with us, but your loyalty hasn’t been tested. And you did kidnap my wife and force her into this marriage. Did you think I forgot that you put your own interests first?”

Hurt rippled through her face but then she straightened her spine and compressed her lips. “I understand.” What she understood echoed between them. 

They were not really family. She was not really one of them. The reality of their situation and what Lexa had already done to them warred with his fondness for her. He didn’t want to be fond of her. Because he could not, yet, trust her. And he wasn’t sure if he ever would be able to. 

She nodded stiffly. “Let us check the barns. Lead the way, Bellamy. You are in charge.” She was bitter.

He didn’t really care. 

They snapped at each other as they walked back to the farm, although once they got to the factory, they could take the covered paths, and no longer had the added stress of the acid rain pounding on them and blowing into their faces. 

“I told you the beasts would be fine. They didn’t want the animals. They wanted the guns.” Lexa snarled as they stood in the cozy tight barn with the eden cattle doing their soft shuffle in their pen. They looked up, hoping for food. Bellamy sighed and went over to give them a few scoops of the greens they liked as a treat.

“The twenty minutes is up, Bellamy. We need to return to the house to check the our oxygen levels, not play with the pets.”

He threw the last handful of greens into the feed trough. “I’m not playing. I’m taking care of the animals.”

“Who aren’t stolen and are doing just fine. So wrap it up. We need to get back to the house to report this raid to the charter.”

She started out the door and he grabbed her arm to hold her back. She glared at him and planted her feet as she pulled her arm out of his hand. They did not touch, the two of them, marriage or not. 

He held up his hands. Then dropped them. “You don’t make the call until we’ve discussed it as a family. This affects us all. We need to consider the ramifications.”

“I can consider the ramifications on my own. I was the commander of—“

She broke off as he raised his eyebrow at her. 

Her nostrils flared. “Fine,” she said and whirled around, stalking back to the house. 

When Clarke made it home, Lexa was making dinner, spitting and snarling at Bellamy that she didn’t need his supervision. She was perfectly capable of cooking a simple meal.

“You’re burning the bready fruit.”

She dropped the spoon she’d been stirring with and plucked the bready fruit out of the pan. “Damn you.”

“It’s okay, Lexa, learning to cook is a skill and you’ll get better with time.”

“What’s going on in here?” Clarke said in the doorway, with Madi, wearing a acid-rain hat but no other gear right behind her elbow. Bellamy figured Madi had been watching out for her on the porch, waiting for her to come home so she could report the latest doings.

Lexa whirled around, abandoning her frying pan. “Clarke! We must call the charter at once. We’ve been raided by the rebels and they’ve stolen our arsenal. This must not go unpunished.”

“I said you’re burning the bready fruit!” Bellamy snapped. Lexa glared at him and took the rest of the slabs out of the pan before turning off the heat and settling the pan into the sink. She took a breath to speak.

“Scrub it out before it sticks.”

She snarled at Bellamy but followed the kitchen routine they’d been teaching her, scrubbing the pan with the brush and letting it drain. 

“Now what were you saying?” Clarke asked when she turned back around, barely restrained in her fuming.

“We need to have a family conference to decide what to do about the raid,” Bellamy said calmly. She wasn’t surprised. Madi was a big mouth. Or a good spy, depending upon your perspective.

“Why do we need to decide at all. Call the guard. Attack the miscreants. End this farce.”

“Lexa, that’s not the way the charter works around here. You know that.”

“You are paranoid, Clarke. You’ve learned form this baseborn oaf. He thinks the government is out to get him. That is ridiculous.”

Bellamy was truly shocked.. “Baseborn oaf?” He was rather amused, it was so creative, but wow. He’d known she’d never really warmed up to him, but still.

“Finish the food, Lexa. We can talk about it over dinner, okay. I’ll listen to your side, but Bellamy’s practicality and insight into this government has done us a lot of good. They don’t care about our heritage here. You and I have always been a part of the ruling class. Which we aren’t anymore. Acting like he is beneath you is not helpful. Because he isn’t beneath you at all. Bellamy is anyone’s equal.” She stuck out her jaw and blew out a short breath through her nostrils. “Please. I’ll get Madi to set the table. Let me talk to Bellamy.”

She took a hold of his arm to lead him from the kitchen.

“Fine. Coddle him. The fool knows nothing of politics.” Lexa muttered quite audibly 

Clarke snapped. “I am not coddling him. I’m choosing him. I chose him again and again. And I am going to go talk to him about how you’re treating him.”

“How I’m treating him?” she scoffed. “How neither of you seem to comprehend this disastrous turn of events is beyond me. I do not know what I ever saw in you Clarke. Truly. I was mistaken.”

“Yes you were,” she spat.

“Clarke,” Bellamy said, feeling remarkably calm. “She’s scared. She’s lashing out because that arsenal was all she had. Now she’s feeling as desperate as the rest of us.”

Clarke leaned into Bellamy. She nodded into his chest. 

“I am scared of nothing.”

“Now who’s the fool?” Bellamy said quietly. She glared at him, but he saw her subside. “Finish up here. Madi will help you dish it out, then we’ll all discuss it.”

“The child too?”

“Come on, Lexa. Madi has more knowledge and experience of Eden than any of us. Give it a rest. Stop being commander for one night. It’s not going to help you here.” Bellamy was exasperated. “I’m going to talk to Clarke, give us a minute.”

He simply ignored her muttering and Clarke and he went to their room where they could talk privately. 

“Bellamy,” Clarke said, immediately, “What happened?”

“She had to go on rounds to check the lands.”

“And she found the armory broken into.” It wasn’t a question. 

He shrugged.

“We should have had them hide it better. She never would have noticed until we opened it to check everything and we could have stalled on that until it was time to go to market.”

“If we did that, it would have looked like an inside job. We couldn’t have that.”

“Because it was.” 

They looked at each other. Clarke’s eyes were large and dark with worry. Neither said anything for a while. “So your sister got all the weapons with no problem.”

“I’m going to assume, since the canister was empty. They took everything. But I haven’t heard a thing. We made sure there was no contact. Nothing to tie us to it. Just another raid by the rebel grounders, right?”

She sighed. “Right.” She chewed her lip and looked away. He could see her thrumming with nervous energy and reached out to envelop her in an embrace. 

“It will be okay.”

“You can’t say that. You can’t know it.”

“I trust it. I have faith.”

She laughed unhappily. “Where’d you get that from.”

He kissed her golden hair. “You.”

She breathed a great broken sob and pressed her face into his neck. “I thought we’d have more time, Bellamy. I thought it would be longer than this before it was discovered. The monsoons will still be raging for another month.”

“I know. But Lexa is determined and she thought she was contributing. She was ‘doing her job’ like we’d been trying to impress upon her. The woman can not simply just take the monsoon season as a break and be lazy. I should have realized.”

“Why, because you can predict everyone’s actions?”

“I should be able to.” He clenched his teeth. He’d tried to hold her off. “If I’d pushed any harder, tried to get her to back off, she would have gotten suspicious.”

Clarke pulled back and looked at him. “You think she’d turn us in?”

He pressed his lips together and shook his head. He didn’t like to imagine it, but she was so righteous today. So sure the grounders were evil and the charter was on her side. “I just think she still thinks of herself as the commander, as part of the ruling class, and she just…. Can’t accept that life is gone.”

“Or that the charter is not on her side.” Clarke sighed. “Okay. We can’t tell her. We can’t trust her. I was hoping, but as much as she’s worked to be a part of our claim and life, she still holds herself apart. She still thinks she deserves better. And turning us in might get her that.”

Her eyes filled with tears. One rolled down her cheek like a drop of light. “What’s this?” He wiped it away with his thumb.

“I’m scared, Bell. I’m nervous. I don’t want to lose what we have.”

“We won’t.”

“Bellamy, you can’t say that. You don’t know.”

“I know I’m not letting you go. Or Madi. That’s what we have. That’s what’s important.”

She nodded and wiped her eyes. “You’re right. And it’s worth the risk, to make this world a better place. They don’t get to treat people like this. They don’t get to destroy their lives for profit.”

He smiled. “That’s better. You’re a revolutionary at heart.” 

“No, that’s you.”

“You’re the visionary, then. This was all your plan.” 

“I hope it works out then.”

“It will.” He was sure. He wanted to be sure.

“It’s already starting to go sideways. Lexa messed up the plan.”

“It’s just the timeline. The plan is still a go. We can adjust.”

“Okay.” They headed back out to dinner. In the hall, they could hear Madi and Lexa bickering as they set the table. Madi liked to fight and gave Lexa back as good as she got. And it let Lexa blow off some steam.

Clarke held him off before they came out into the dining area. “I was hoping…” she started and then stopped.

“What, love? What were you hoping?”

“I was hoping Lexa would be on our side.” She looked honestly sad. Regretful. 

Thinking back to their whole story with Lexa on the claim, he was surprised to find he was too. “So was I.”


	19. The End. The Beginning.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke and Bellamy are willing to sacrifice it all, because in the end they won.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> listen. listen. take this thing away from me. i have been sitting on it so long with the ending not done, just take it. it's done. the end. if there are some inconsistencies, welcome to my life. TAKE IT. i love this story but holy crap that was hard to finish.

“Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!” The alarm rang too early. Clarke felt like she was rising up out of a deep hole. The alarm kept blaring. “Ugh,” she groaned and rolled over.

She’d just fallen asleep, it felt like. She didn’t want to wake up. They’d argued with Lexa for half the night about how to handle the theft before she’d subsided and agreed to continue the conversation in the morning.

She just wanted to go back to sleep. She didn’t want to continue that conversation. It was too early.

She felt Bellamy’s weight press into her as he stretched out to reach for the alarm.

But the alarm was on his side of the bed. He was the early riser.

“Raven, what is it?” he said, his voice husky with sleep. He sat up. 

It wasn’t the alarm, it was their com system. Something on a private coded frequency that Raven and Monty had rigged. Suddenly Clarke was awake.

Raven’s voice came over the com, staticky.. “A destroyer has registered a flight plan to your claim.”

Clarke scrambled up to sit next to Bellamy. She grabbed his hand and spoke into the com. “Monty’s advanced warnings told you?” she asked. 

“A destroyer,” Bellamy said.

“It’s happening.” Raven’s voice was without emotion. “That’s what they sent to wipe out the last claim.”

Clarke and Bellamy’s eyes met. They knew what had happened. “Lexa reported the theft. After everything we told her about the charter, she still didn’t believe us and thought she would get special treatment. We went to sleep and she told them.” The muscle in Bellamy’s jaw leapt. 

Clarke closed her eyes and tried to steady her breath. When she looked at him again, she knew it was more than just Lexa betraying them. “They wouldn’t have sent a destroyer just for a raid. They’re going to wipe us out. They made the connection between you and Octavia.”

Bellamy shook his head. Not denying. He knew. “They know she’s alive and they know she’s one of the rebel grounders. They knew the whole time. When I asked if she was alive. They knew.”

“Of course they knew,” Raven said. “Now they think you’re on the rebel side, and they’re coming to take you apart.”

Bellamy just nodded. “Thanks Raven. Phase 2. Stay out of trouble until you can’t avoid it.” 

“Sometimes you can’t avoid it,” Raven’s voice came over the radio.

Clarke pulled the com closer. “You stay safe, Raven. We need you alive. All of you.” 

“Yeah, well you, too.” Raven’s voice almost broke. She rushed on. “You gotta go. Now. We’re preparing here, too. Raven out.”

“Blake-Griffin out.”

There was a beat where Clarke and Bellamy both sat in silence. He turned to her, his face grim. Clarke twined her fingers in his and held on, tightly. “I’m scared,” she said.

“Me too. But there’s no backing out. Everything is going to change from now on.”

She laughed. She couldn’t help it. “Just like when we boarded the cryo ship. We had no idea what was coming. We were just jumping into the unknown and hoping for the best.”

He pulled her to him and hugged her fiercely, kissing her hair. “Not just like that. Then we were alone. Two strangers brought together by chance and a mail order marriage agency. Now we’re together, and no matter the danger, no matter the future, I love it, because I’m with you.”

She pulled him down into a desperate kiss. He was just as desperate. Then she pulled away, touching his cheek for just a moment. He was so dear to her. “Let’s do this, Bellamy.”

He grinned at her and his teeth were sharp. “Let’s do it, Clarke.”

***

When they woke Madi, she jumped out of bed, fully dressed. “Yes!” she cried. “Finally.”

“This is not something to celebrate, Madi,” Bellamy scolded. 

She shoved her feet into her boots and grabbed a backpack from the closet. “They’re going down. We’re going to take them there.”

“Madi!” Clarke wasn’t sure why she was so dismayed. “They’re coming to eradicate our claim. We’re going to lose everything.”

Madi grinned like a wolf. “We never had a thing. That’s the secret of Eden. No one but the charter ever has anything. Don’t be so grim, Clarke.” She laughed then “None of this was ever real anyway. Now it’s real.” She pulled on her acid rain gear. “I know my part. Meet you at the spot.”

And then she was gone.

Bellamy and Clarke stared at each other. “What did we create, Clarke, the girl is a lunatic.”

Clarke snorted and grabbed his hand. “I don’t think we did that. I think that was 100% grade A Madi. We just thought we’d tamed her.”

“She’s great. Yeah.” He squeezed her hand and took a deep breath. “Now we have to take care of the other member of the family.”

“She betrayed us,” Clarke said, grim. 

“I bet she doesn’t think of it that way.”

“Why would she? She thinks she’s right and she thinks she knows the way the world works and we’re naive simpletons who just don’t understand.”

“It always worked for her before why would her privilege fail her now?”

He started back out into the hall and she held him back. “I”m sorry,” she whispered, pulling his hand to her chest. “It’s my fault. I brought her here, took her into our family. I thought I was doing the right thing, but she’s brought ruin down upon us. She’s always thought she had the right to make the world her own and she keeps trying to run right over me and you and… everybody. I never should have—“

“You did what you had to do, Clarke. She forced it onto you and you made the best of the situation. You tried to hold us together. And you did. Look at us now.”

“Terrified and about to lose everything?”

He shook his head. “Strong and prepared. And ready to take control of our lives. If Lexa hadn’t come into this family, maybe we would have kept our claim nice and peaceful, but maybe, maybe not. Octavia was always a grounder. And they knew my connection to her right at the beginning. They just didn’t tell me.” He laughed. “I think we were always a ticking time bomb, stuck between two groups in a power struggle.”

“It’s always politics, Bellamy,” Clarke remembered Polis and Alpha. The whole quadrant. Nothing but politics. “Games and power plays.”

“Yeah, well, maybe we’re done being pawns.”

Clarke nodded. He was right. “Yeah, let’s go get Lexa. It’s our turn to move.”

They pounded on Lexa’s door. It was locked. She always kept her bedroom door locked. She had never trusted them. She said it was just her culture, but it was also her nature. When she finally came to the door, she looked rumpled and sleep flushed. She was dressed in a goddamned silk nightgown. Who wore silk nightgowns on a farm in the middle of nowhere? Clarke could not believe the nonsense. She threw the acid rain gear at her. “Get dressed, Lexa. We have to leave.”

Lexa narrowed her eyes and looked back and forth between Clarke and Bellamy, clutching at the gear. “I reported the theft. The charter will be here soon. You don’t have to worry about grounders attacking us. We’ll be safe.”

Clarke gaped at her.

Bellamy started laughing. “Oh my god. You honestly thought the grounders were going to attack us? There’s no way.”

“We should have told her.”

“Why so she could sell us out?” There was nothing Clarke could say to that, since Lexa did sell them out.

“What are you talking about.” Lexa’s chin was back up. The glare was like ice.

“My sister came to this colony four years before me. The charter told me she was dead. She wasn’t. She is a grounder leader. ”

“Your sister.” Lexa gaped. 

“My sister. They lied and said she was dead, instead of telling me she was a grounder rebel. And you told the charter the grounders took our arsenal. And now they made the connection. And they think we’re collaborators. They are sending a destroyer to wipe our claim out and dissolve our holdings, leaving us penniless and holdless. Not just Clarke and I, but you too. Good job, Lexa.”

She took a grip on the weather gear. “Well I’ll call them back. I’ll tell them we’re not collaborators.”

“We are collaborators, Lexa. It was a plan,” Clarke said, as Lexa’s face drained of blood. “It was our plan.” It felt like a knife when she said it. It was the knife Clarke had been holding behind her back the entire time Lexa had been there. When Lexa had stolen her mother’s ship and held her people hostage and then kidnapped Clarke and threatened Bellamy, Clarke had been holding this knife. They’d gotten closer, real friends even, but she was not sorry, because she had not forgiven Lexa for what she had done.

Lexa’s jaw dropped. “You stole my weapons?”

“You tried to steal my claim. And my life. You tried to control me.” The ice in her heart came through in her voice.

“You tried to steal my wife.” Bellamy’s voice was heat. 

Lexa stood there, staring. Breathing heavily. Clarke pushed her aside and went to her closet, pulling out appropriate clothes. “Get dressed now, we have to go.”

“I will not.”

Bellamy cocked his head. “You will. I won’t let you be taken by them and used as chattel, and that is what they will do. You are no longer the commander. No matter who you once were, now you are only a commodity to them, and I won’t let that happen. You’re coming with us.”

“You are not in control of me.”

“Dammit,” he muttered under his breath. “We do not have time for this.” He turned to face Lexa. “Listen. You are out of your element here. You keep thinking that you can keep your comfortable world, but you can’t. You are unprepared for whatever they would have lined up for you. None of it is good. None of it will be your choice. If you want to have the least chance to regain some sort of control over your life, and that means for real, responsibility and free will and something of your own, not just pretending to be Clarke’s wife, then you need to come with us now, and use what you know, tactics, politics, military strategy, whatever, and help us and the grounder rebels to take this continent away from the charter and make it a FREE colony.”

Clarke crossed her arms over her chest and smiled as Bellamy’s words hit Lexa, resonated with her. Gave her hope for something that she had lost. 

“And get my ship back. We can have our OWN colonists.”

“My MOTHER’S ship, not yours” Clarke broke in. “And you still won’t be commander, but if you contribute, you can be part of the council, like all of us.”

“Oh like this marriage? Equal partners? Without secrets?”

“No. Like a council. With all the other grounders. To make a new society. We could use your knowledge. I know you wanted a more peaceful quadrant, but the politics and tribalism of the stations wouldn’t allow it. We’re far from the old quadrant. We can start over here.”

Lexa looked back and forth between Bellamy and Clarke. “I won’t be married to either of you anymore. It is untenable.”

“Agreed,” Bellamy said. 

“You’ll be free. Without a claim no one needs to be married at all.” She said, confidently. Bellamy shot her daggers with his eyes. She laughed. “Unless we want to, Bellamy. God so dramatic. We have an army coming to destroy us and you’re making drama.”

He reached out and snagged her wrist and pulled her to him. “Shut up. I love you.”

“You shut up,” she said, and kissed him. Desperately. Quickly. “I love you,” she said when she pulled away.

“Untenable. I need to be free of the both of you. If this will do it. Let’s go.”

Clarke nodded. This marriage was untenable, but Clarke knew Lexa. She knew that the idea of a continent to rule made her hungry. More than a station. Real land. A planet. If they could use that hunger, they would. 

Bellamy kissed her once more. “Get her ready to go. I’ll get the rucksacks.”

He left and Clarke turned back to Lexa who stared at her steadily. “What?”

Lexa blinked slowly twice, and then nodded, as if deciding something. “Call your mother at the capitol. Have her tell Gustus this code. “Jus Drein Jus Daun.” He is security in her building. I made sure. I still have political clout, Clarke, no matter what you think. And we can use it. If you want your mother to join us on this continent, tell her to pack what she needs quickly and go with him. He has a plan in place to reclaim my ship and meet me on the other side of the mountain. With as many of my guards as he can. It must be done quietly and quickly. And at once.” She turned swiftly and stripped the silky nightgown. She was still beautiful, but none of that mattered.

Clarke gaped at her. “You were going to betray the charter.”

Lexa pulled on her outback gear. Heavy socks and leather pants, a tight shirt that wouldn’t get in the way of the acid rain gear. “You continue to think I am a fool. I knew once I got here that it was all a power play. It always is. I would recover mine. I get what is mine, Clarke.” She tied her boots.

“And I am not yours.”

She shook her head. “No. You are not. And frankly, you annoy me far more than you did in my memories of you. So I am relieved that this farce is over, and we can began the real battle.”

“You won’t get to just run roughshod over people, Lexa. We have rights. And power in our own rights.” 

Lexa stuffed a few things in a bag and pulled on her rain gear. “We can consider how power is divided later. First we must take it from the villains.” 

On that, Clarke was agreed. They nodded and they left.

Bellamy handed them their rucksacks. They were heavy, filled with supplies. Other necessary possessions had been removed and hidden away long before. They were prepared. They were.

The wild bleating of the beasts made Clarke jump. She was keyed up.

The whole herd stormed past the front of the house, and then into the west woods. Trampling the carefully tended fields and breaking through the fence that was, no longer, electrified. 

“What is happening?” Lexa cried.

“Madi let them out. She wouldn’t let them be burned alive by the destroyer.”

“Your girl is a beast herself. No wonder she has empathy for them.”

It was half insult and half praise. 

“Let’s go,” Bellamy said, heading out for their meeting spot, grim. Clarke caught up to him and grabbed his hand. 

“Together,” she said. He smiled. She could see the nerves in his tight jaw. “We’ll be okay.”

He let out his breath and nodded. “Follow, Lexa. Let’s go.”

And they went.

***

The sun was just beginning to touch the eastern horizon, but there was enough light to see by, because their claim was burning. It was a great blaze, rising high into the sky, releasing red sparks to meet the stars. 

Nothing was left. The guards had swept through the claim confiscating anything of worth. All the mechanics and mods that were portable were now in the hold of the destroyer. But that was not where the value of their claim lay.

Clarke and Bellamy watched, arms wrapped around each other. They had built this hidden blind in the trees, off on the cliffs overlooking the farm. Because they’d known, they’d known that they might need a place to hide, whether in clear skies or acid rain. 

Now the native fronds and vines both hid them from the charter guards and protected them from the burning rain. It was built high enough off the ground that the pooling acid was too far away to affect them with off gassing. The air was clear up here. Even the smoke from their house was blowing away from them. Away.

Bellamy bent his head and kissed her hair and didn’t say anything. She hid her face in his neck.

It had been over a year since they had landed on Eden. When Clarke thought back to her life before, on the other side of the universe, it seemed impossible that she had not always known this man, that this had not always been her home, that this child had not always been hers.

Madi sat at her feet, cross legged, peering through the rails. 

Lexa stood as far as she could from Clarke and still be hidden in the shelter, staring with a blank expression that, far from being emotionless, showed how shocked Lexa really was. 

“They are truly destroying everything,” she said.

“I think they are pissed that we’re nowhere to be found,” Bellamy said. The deep rumble of his voice gave her solace. She felt it all the way to her toes. “They wanted us for their stable of unclaimed.”

“They’re certainly going to think we’re rebels now,” Clarke said.

“Aren’t we?” 

Lexa sneered at the sight of the destroyer finally taking off, laying down another barrage of flame over the destruction it had already created. “ It is a waste of resources.” She shook her head like she couldn’t believe it.

“They don’t care,” Madi said, shrugging. “They like dragging people away in shame. They parade them through the streets when the bring them to town, showing another family that was too weak to survive. Then they get to the bargaining, and each legal aged person has to negotiate what skills and talents they have to give to the charter. Then they’d bundle them off to their new “positions.” As slaves. Oh they don’t call it that, but that’s what it is.”

“Slaves have been outlawed by the interstellar consulate,” Lexa protested.

“That’s on the other side of the universe. Here it’s different.” Madi scoffed. “I’m a slave.”

“No, you’re not,” Clarke snapped.

Madi laughed this time. “I was a slave. Now I’m the daughter of a citizen doctor. Except she’s not a citizen either. She’s a free person and so am I. And so is he,” she pointed at Bellamy. “And so are you.” She glared fiercely at Lexa. “You wanna be a free person or you wanna be a slave? No commanders here.”

“You are a brat.”

“So are you.” 

No one had any response for that. What response was there? They all silently watched as the charter ships flew away and their claim burned to black ash.

When the sun was filling the bowl of the sky with blue and pink clouds, they climbed down from their perch.

“I’m sorry, Bellamy,” Clarke said, as the sadness hit her from out of nowhere.

“For what?” he pulled her close. 

“For how everything turned out. You came with me across the universe for a claim and a family and a new life. I promised you a claim. And look what you got. You didn’t sign up for this.”

He wrapped his fingers in her hair. “No. I really didn’t. I signed up for the unknown but what I was pretty sure was just the same old shit on the other side of space. What did I get?” His brushed her hair out of her eyes and the sun hit his face as he looked at her. He shone with his love of her. “I got the universe.”

Clarke breath left her body. “Fuck you, Bellamy.” She pulled him down to her so she could kiss him. “We just lost everything and I feel like I won. How did you do it?”

He shrugged. “I think it’s just the adventure. You are a wild ride.” He laughed and she pinched his side. 

“I’m glad you think this is all funny,” Octavia said, pushing through the woods, dressed in acid rain gear, interrupting. “But I’ve got a transport for you, out to the outer banks.”

“We’re leaving,” Clarke said. Hardly believing it. Leaving her claim, that she’d traveled he galaxy for.

“We’re getting the fight ready, Clarke,” Bellamy said, “It’s only just begun.”

“Well then, let’s go. You don’t want to hang around a claim that’s been flamed. They keep coming back for a while.”

Octavia guided them towards their strange, scraped together ship. It was nearly invisible in the woods and rain. 

“I’m not going.” Lexa balked.

“Excuse me? Are you planning to die in the acid rain?” Octavia answered.

Lexa turned her sharp gaze on Bellamy’s sister, fierce in her warpaint and leathers. “I said I’m not going. I’m getting my ship back.”

“My mother’s ship,” Clarke couldn’t help but add. Lexa glared.

“The ship. We have a ship. We’ve already set the plan in motion. My lietuenant is bringing it to us. To the plateau. He is loyal to me, not to this charter. It means no one has to be stuck on this planet and we have access to the rest of the universe.”

Octavia paused. Looked at Bellamy. He glanced at Clarke before nodding to his sister. 

“Yes. We have a space ship. A cryo ship. For travel to the other side of the universe. Which means the charter will no longer have sole access to the planet.”

“We need that. They’ve always had a strangle hold on colonists because of that. People can LEAVE.” The desperation on Octavia’s face was almost shocking.

“Lexa brought it.” Clarke admitted. “She made the plan. I relayed the message to my mother. If it works, her lieutenant will bring it to her.”

“We can’t stay here, though. If they catch you, and they’ll be looking, they’ll take you.”

“I”ll take that risk,” Lexa said.

Octavia set her measured gaze upon Bellamy and Clarke and Madi, who had managed to finagle her way between Bellamy and Clarke. “Are you?”

Bellamy shook his head. “I don’t want a ship. I want to leave. I don’t need the charter anymore. I have everything I could ever have wanted. And I want Clarke and Madi safe.” 

Clarke found herself in his arms and Madi stuck her chin out. “We’re getting out of here, auntie. Take us home.”

Octavia paused, clearly torn between the possibility of an actual spacefaring ship and leaving the devastation of the charter behind.

A girl stepped up behind her. “I’ll take responsibility for this one,” she said. Her hazel eyes were hilighted by black war paint, and her curly hair puffed out in a cloud in the humidity. “I”ll take her to the north settlement, it’s near the plateau, and we can keep a watch for when the ship might arrive. And if it does…”

“If it does, you get it to our northern settlement. With the weapons we already have and the ship, we have enough of a centralized power to stand up the the charter.”

“We can declare independence,” the woman said.

Octavia smiled. “You’re right Costia. You pick a crew and take Lexa out to pray for this ship.”

“No praying. Gustus will not disappoint me. It’s in his nature.” 

“Fine. No praying. Lexa, this is Costia. She will show you around. You’ve cause a lot of problems, but perhaps my brother and his wife have brought us an answer.”

“Freedom,” Clarke said. “The whole point of this is freedom.”

Octavia smiled. “I like her. Freedom you have, Clarke Griffin-Blake. Welcome to the grounders. Come with us to your new life.”

Costia took Lexa away and Octavia led them to the transport, a hover craft that went longer distances than the rovers, and Madi, Bellamy and Clark piled in. He wrapped his arm around her and she settled back into his broad chest. Madi sat up so she could watch the woods zoom past, so fast that the acid rain barely spattered the windows.

“This is it,” Madi said. “We’re free.”

Bellamy nodded and wrapped his arm around Clarke. “Yup.” He said, and kissed her neck. 

Clarke felt like she should feel as if the world had ended, but she didn’t. She felt like this was just the beginning. 

 

The End.


End file.
